An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everybody Blind

by SASundance

Can there ever be a justification for choosing revenge over justice, especially when you work for a federal law enforcement agency? This is an AU Aliyah story and NB that this is not a TIVA story. Warning, contains a major character death - for more info on the identity please see author's note in chapter 1 Now Complete

16. Chapter 16:Time To Be Born A Time to Die

Warning: This chapter contains content that may cause distress to some people – there is discussion of depression and suicide ideation by one character. If you feel like this may cause psychological distress then I would urge you to avoid reading the following.

A/N: Sorry that this chapter has taken a while to be uploaded. Holidays definitely cramped my style. Also while I have the last several chapters mapped out I have hit a snag. I find myself in need of a SME (subject matter expert) or even someone with a keen interest in the topic would be extremely helpful to give me some guidance. I would be grateful to talk to someone who has knowledge of Military Law or if not then at least a working knowledge of US civilian criminal law would be mighty useful.

Thanks to Arress for beta'ing this chapter and all remaining errors are my bad. As is commonly the case in this story, this chapter is quite a long one. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. I suspect it was not what many of you were expecting – at least I hope not. I love being unpredictable.

An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind

Chapter 16 A time to be Born a Time to Die

Jimmy Palmer Saturday 15th August 2012:

Survivor guilt is a condition that comes about when a person feels like they have done the wrong thing by surviving when others haven't. Or when they come through traumatic events, or even mass job retrenchment. For example, when their colleagues get laid off and they survive the purge this can create a great deal of guilt, made worse when the retrenchment is acrimonious. It happens during combat, epidemics, natural disasters and even amongst family members of people who have committed suicide. While it used to be thought of as a separate syndrome, current editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders – the so called bible for diagnosing and treating mental disorders amongst the medical fraternity, no longer recognizes it as such. It's now considered to be a significant symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

So why am I sharing this inconsequential data with you I can practically hear you ask? Well… for the simple reason that when I learnt that Abby and Ducky were both abducted tonight while I was on duty, I experienced feelings compatible with survivor guilt. I felt like if only I had kept my commitment to go bowling with Abby and her nun buddies, I would have been there tonight and could have done something to stop her abduction. As I think I said once before, we didn't make a habit of hanging out together, so the fact we were fated to do so tonight was surely a sign that I was supposed to be there to prevent it. Which logically was a pretty stupid thing to think let alone say, especially since I couldn't even prevent myself from getting shot by that wacko Samuel Rivkin in the sting operation a few months ago. But then that's emotions for you – completely illogical but incredibly persistent!

And since survivor guilt is now understood to be a component of PTSD which occurs in the aftermath of traumatic occurrences, it stands to reason that what I am feeling isn't that, simply because it takes time to develop. No, what ails me, if you accept the strictures of the DSM IV and subsequent revisions, is nothing more or less than good old-fashioned guilt. But I've gotta say, it surely feels like survivor guilt to me. Plus even if it's not, it gives me even more appreciation for the pain that Tony felt when Ziva's half-brother Ari decided to single out the only female on the team on the roof, although he could literally have taken out any of them. Or all of them for that matter. Yet Tony ended up wearing part of Cate's grey matter and her blood on his face, he was standing that close to her, so I guess that more than qualifies him to developing PTSD and survivor guilt.

From his perspective, she had parents that loved her and siblings that doted on her, so it should have been him that was taken since he didn't have family. Plus he always said his primary function on the team was to be brawns to their brains – probably because they always told him he was a dumb jock despite much evidence to the contrary.

You know lately I've been giving that situation a lot of thought. Conventional wisdom has it that Ari chose Cate because of Gibbs' wife and child dying and his apparent Achilles' heel where women were concerned. While not denying Gibbs' weak spot, I have found myself wondering if the motive for her killing was much more pragmatic. Eli David wanted Ziva on Gibbs' team for whatever Machiavellian reason, and to that end someone on the team needed to go in order to create a vacancy. Killing McGee would have resulted in him being replaced by another computer geek – if at all, since they functioned before him with a three-person team. Killing Tony would not have cleared a place for Ziva, since a foreign operative could not fill his place as SFA, and the same argument would apply to Gibbs as well.

Then there was Caitlyn Todd, who whilst an experienced Secret Service agent, had limited training in investigative procedures, and Ziva could easily match her in hand to hand training and handling weapons. Apart from her protection experience, her other major skill on the job was profiling, and I know you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but honestly, she sucked as a profiler. She was always getting too involved with the people she was trying to profile and getting it wrong. And she seemed impervious to the fact that Tony knew how to push her buttons to keep her from figuring him out. So profiling wasn't exactly a skill the team would miss - but a female agent was virtually indispensable when dealing with some witnesses or persons of interest. Therefore, her spot was the one that along with political pressure brought to bear from Eli, was most likely to grant Ziva entry onto the MCRT.

Still, it was unlikely that Eli David would ever confess that he ordered his son to kill an NCIS agent to create a place for his beloved daughter, before ordering her to kill her brother to curry favour with Gibbs after riling him up for months. Not unless Tony had the chance to trap him in an interrogation again like he did with Rivkin, like that was ever going to happen.

And speculation aside, it doesn't really matter since what's done is done, but I know that for Tony and Gibbs standing beside her, the survivor guilt would never truly disappear. And for Tony, within a few short years he would also be forced to deal with a former lover's death to save him and others in a terrorist bombing, not to mention the suicide by dirtbag of his director, who ordered him off protection detail so she could go out in a blaze of glory instead of wasting away to a terminal illness. The selfish witch! Then the whole sordid mess with Ziva and Michael Rivkin, and the icing on the cake being his FBI nemesis, Ron Sacks, eating poison-laced food that was meant to kill him.

Once again, I have to wonder how he manages to function with all that baggage and still stay one step ahead of Eli David. I mean, seriously, how could he not have PTSD and a crippling case of survivor guilt from all of that crap? No wonder he took off so no one else would be a target for his guilt. Hopefully, he doesn't know about our debacle in Indianapolis, because knowing the guy, he'll take that on board too. What a damn freakin' mess.

So yeah, I do realise after laying all that data out for consideration that my feelings can't even come close to being real survivor guilt. Although it still doesn't make me feel any better and I still feel like I let Abby down tonight. The only somewhat bright spot is that from the updates that I've been getting, Tobias has taken charge of both abduction cases on the assumption they are linked and he is going to let Gibbs interrogate the suspect, or maybe just let him loose with the thug for five minutes while he takes a crap. Technically, Gibbs is just a civilian now, although perhaps he can be appointed as a consultant. Nah… Fornell will just take a leak.

Apparently those nuns of Abby's managed to capture one of her abductors and hold onto him til the LEOs arrive. I've heard from people I went to college and med school with that, pardon the pun, some nuns were holy terrors when it came to educating the next generation of little tikes at parochial school. The whole carrot and the stick approach…but just without the carrot. I always thought it was an urban legend, but now I'm not so sure.

And frankly, I'm hoping not and that the Sisters have passed some of those supper scary skills to my favourite forensic Goth. As guilty as I feel for not being there when Abby really needed a friend, I'm trying to take comfort in the fact that she and Dr Mallard are captured and not dead. At least I hope not. And really, until we have proof otherwise, it's simply a waste of time to think any other way. So I'll picture both of them as alive and planning to inflict chaos on the scum that took them and what we'll do when we get them both back...safe and sound

The thing I need to keep in my mind is that both of them are highly resourceful people. They are both super intelligent, but also have a native intelligence that will make them strong adversaries. Both have personalities that strongly adhere to the philosophy of carpe diem so any chances that come their way, they will seize with both hands. And they're both no slouches when it comes to defending themselves either.

Abby, partly because of the lifestyle she's adopted and her rather dubious bunch of cronies and their nightclubbing activities. Also the self-defence training that Gibbs and Tony drilled into her in the early days when they couldn't always be available when she needed an escort to some pretty seedy clubs didn't hurt, either. And Abby had proved without doubt that she could defend herself. When that whack-job Charles Sterling, who tried to set Tony up for murder who came after her with a knife when she foiled his plan was ample evidence of that. He ended up trussed up like a turkey on the floor of the lab with duct tape wrapped around him right up his wazoo. Removing it must have been a really painful process. Especially from his hair!

Then there was that witness that decided to get his court case dropped by getting rid of the forensic expert witness and hired someone to kill her. Even while a contract killer was trying to kill her and she was also being stalked by a psycho ex-boyfriend, she still demonstrated her resilience in taking down the killer with a Taser, even while dressed up as Forensic Barbie. She'd also kept her head when that psychotic killer and fanboy of McGee's novels decided that Amy Sutton wasn't good enough for Agent McGregor and he'd held her at gunpoint in the convent. So Abby wouldn't let the current dirt bags panic her – she'd stay nice and calm and look for a way out of the situation, I'm sure.

Then there was the very venerable Dr. Mallard, an eminent forensic pathologist to be sure, but definitely there was so much more to the man than simply being one of the world's best medical examiners. During my years working for him, amongst the glut of stories and minutiae of trivia that I listen to every day, were some cryptic references to clandestine activities. I'm pretty certain that he worked for military intelligence at some point, and even some of his stories about NCIS point to him operating as more than an ME in Europe with Gibbs and the former director, Jenny Shepard. While the man is getting along in years and obviously his reflexes aren't what they were, he has a mind like a steel trap and it takes a lot to bamboozle the guy. He's not the sort to panic – apparently, he had stayed ice cool when Ziva's brother had him, Cate and my predecessor, Gerald Jackson held hostage down in Autopsy when he was pretending to be the FBI and Mossad's double agent in Hamas. And Dr Mallard wasn't even an agent.

And regarding that whole Ari hostage situation, here's the thing that I've never been able to understand. Granted I came in on the back end of that whole debacle after it had happened, but I don't understand how anyone actually believed that he was on our side. I mean, Gerald ended up permanently disabled and frankly, he was damned lucky he got to keep his arm. Oh yeah, I get that when undercover you had to do things, some unpleasant things, to establish your cover and he was supposed to be playing a part to convince the terrorist cell that he was one of them. I do, I totally get it! But see, here's the thing that I don't get about it; Ari Haswari was a trained doctor, according to Dr. Mallard he attended the same university in Edinburgh as Ducky had for his medical degree.

So the man knew all about human anatomy and what it meant to shoot Gerald in the manner that he did. He knew that he was running a grave risk of Gerald losing that arm, so if he was really one of the good guys as he later claimed, why not shoot the autopsy assistant someplace where a through and through was possible? That way there was no danger of Gerald losing an arm? I mean, from all accounts he shot Gibbs in the shoulder and put him down without threatening his professional career. Gibbs didn't even stay overnight in hospital. In shooting poor Gerald in that manner, there was no real reason for him behave in such a vicious and vindictive fashion towards a guy who wasn't even in law enforcement.

It wasn't as if he had accomplices to impress during the siege, so a simple through and through would have more than sufficed. So why didn't the handlers and TPTB ask themselves why he was deliberately so vicious when a much lesser degree of violence would have equally served the same purpose? And why did Caitlyn Todd, supposedly a profiler for the Secret Service, not ask such a simple question either, instead of getting caught up in the monster's so-called kindly eyes? Surely she was well aware that Hitler had been known to kiss babies, yet that hardly made him a nice person.

It sort of beggared belief that he was really working for us – at least from where I stand, anyway. How could so many people get taken in by him? Clearly father, son and daughter were all a bunch of dangerous psychopaths.

Still, returning to the topic at hand, Ducky and Abby for two civilians were pretty well equipped to handle this terrible situation. Probably better than just about anyone else I know, which made me feel slightly more optimistic. Gibbs, Balboa and Fornell were all looking for them, and that was a very formidable trio to have in your corner. Since Abby and Ducky were probably Gibbs' oldest friends who still maintained regular contact with him anyway, he'd do whatever it took to find them.

And unlike Tony, they would be trying to be found. Tim McGee, who was also anxiously awaiting news on the pair, was keeping me in the loop and assisting desperately in the search too. A few hours later he called to say that Ducky, when initially taken, had already had his cell phone transmitting video to Fornell before it went dead and couldn't be traced; consensus being the abductors had destroyed it. Nonetheless, it had given them some valuable data to start analysing, along with that dirtbag that Sister Rosita and her bowling nuns had managed to capture. So thankfully, they did have some leads.

They would be alright…they had to be. We couldn't cope otherwise.

And you know, I expect Tony to find out about them being taken and come roaring back to the rescue to save them. It's what he does. If he learns they're in trouble, I'm certain he'll be here.

An Eye For an Eye

LAX International Airport 10th August 2012:

Settling in to the business class seat, Tony stretched his six foot two form out comfortably before he extracted the latest best seller from his backpack, which he intended to read during the flight. His colleagues at NCIS had always assumed that he didn't have the smarts to read real books and that all his knowledge came from movies and TV. As much as it hurt to think that all they saw after years working with him was a dumb jock who played jokes, the advantage of them not really knowing him had been well illustrated over the last three years he'd been on the run.

Case in point, no one ever thought that he might be busking to make ends meant before he hooked up with Mike, since they didn't know he was somewhat of a talented musician. Keeping his intellectual side under wraps could also have proved useful if he'd had time to acquire a good set of fake IDs before leaving, since he could have easily gotten a job teaching high school or college with his education and grades. But since he told them about his majoring in Phys. Ed., no one ever bothered to check out his academic transcript or GPA because they'd already made up their minds about him.

Anyway, the intellectual side of him was private, and while his love of literature was fairly easily explained away by his movie watching habits, no one bothered to look any further. Sometimes just for his own amusement, he toyed with his co-workers, throwing them a bone – a snippet of information that was in direct contradiction to what was common knowledge, just to see if anyone was able to see beyond the publicly projected persona, but they never did. He once told Abby about dating his high school music teacher when she challenged him to tell her something about him she didn't know, and even if he didn't tell her that she ended up becoming his fiancée before leaving him at the altar, she wouldn't have believed him anyway. He knew for a fact that she didn't believe him because she made a joke about it being a guy. Then a few days later, she was back to hassling him because he only ever dated women much younger than himself.

Or another favourite bone he'd toss the team every so often was when he'd touch type using both hands. He'd done it a couple of times in front of Cate instead of the two-fingered variety he usually made such a big deal about using to see if she'd catch on. Yet, because she was convinced of her superiority over him from the moment she'd joined them, she never noticed, discounting all the times when his behaviour was inconsistent with a goof-off jock. Logically, it would make sense as a profiler and investigator to question the inconsistencies and conclude that his higher order behaviours were just as likely to be as authentic as the lesser ones. Except that it seemed to be human nature to believe the worst of people and ignore data that was incompatible with that concept, or perhaps it was just him that people thought the worst of.

And if a profiler was so easily duped, the rest of his team of crack investigators weren't exactly a challenge, either. Gibbs and Senior were quick to think the worst over the years, so he'd learnt to not disappoint their low expectations of him and give them what they expected. And it was child's play to keep up the act. For instance, when it came to his reading habits, scores of flights taken over the years with his boss and team members meant that he could continue the facade of dumb lug simply by buying sports and skin magazines to read in-flight. No one ever bothered to look any deeper.

At least for the last three years while he was still hiding, he didn't have to pretend to have the intellectual capacity of a house plant. There had to be at least one benefit in being on the run, right?! Sure the book he'd grabbed in the airport bookshop wasn't up to the standards of Samuel Clements, J.D. Salinger, Ayn Rand or Tolkien, but it would pass the hours that they'd be in the air without being too challenging, since he seriously doubted that he'd be able to sleep. It wasn't every day that you knew that you were making the first leg of your final journey, so it was understandable that his concentration was all shot to hell. A best seller was acceptable reading material under such unique circumstances, surely.

He'd decided weeks ago that he couldn't keep asking his friends and his former teammates to keep sacrificing their lives for his. He wasn't that important, not in the grand scheme of things. It had taken Ducky, dear old Donald Mallard, to make him wake up to the fact that too many people were being affected, or worse, put in danger, just to keep his miserable ass alive. It didn't make sense, not mathematically, morally or ethically, and he knew with an unshakeable certainty that Eli David would never give up trying to extract revenge. Not until he drew his last breath, and maybe even then he would make a deal with Beelzebub so he could keep up the hunt.

Tony had become so used to not thinking about the life he'd left behind. He'd stupidly imagined that the team would simply continue on like it had when Blackadder had departed or Cate had been killed. Even splitting up the team in the hunt for a mole hadn't been able to tear them apart, so if he ever thought about them fleetingly, and he tried hard not to, he saw life carrying on. He saw McGee sitting at his desk picking all the sprinkles off his doughnut, Gibbs bawling them all out while drinking copious quantities of coffee, Abby listening to music that made your ears bleed, and Jimmy and Ducky conducted PMs while carrying out discussions on arcane matters in Autopsy. Learning the truth about his former co-workers' careers had shocked him to the core. It also forced him to question the ethics of permitting his current friends and co-workers to protect him and run the risk of getting in Eli David's way.

Of course, it was a quandary he had agonised over on many a sleepless night in the three years he'd been with Croc, but when he'd expressed his feelings, his two old school friends always smoothed over his concerns. This time though, with the additional information that Ducky had supplied, he mulled it over internally. He didn't bother discussing it with Steve and Mike, since he already knew what they'd say, but that didn't mean they were right. It only meant that they cared about him and wanted to do the right thing. And so he'd gradually begun entertaining the notion of finding Eli David to give him what he wanted.

It briefly occurred to him to try and take the bastard out, but he knew that Ziva had an uncle who raised Arab horses and an aunt called Nettie plus a cousin Dana who he'd run into once, before the Mossad liaison had joined the team. If he killed Eli, then the tit for tat revenge would probably just be perpetuated and other people he cared about would be bound to get caught up in the crossfire. That was the thing he'd observed about revenge. She was a very jealous mistress, never satisfied. So she played people off against each other, hate begetting hate, until it was impossible to simply stop and say, enough!

So he'd made up his mind about what needed to be done and had every intention of ending this farce several months ago, but life had a way of taking well intentioned plans and trashing them. Then laughing in your face with his foul breath.

First off, it had been the murder of his old CI and friend Cherry Kohla from Philadelphia. So he'd felt obliged to go and ensure that her murder was investigated properly for the sake of her children, since prostitutes never factored very high in the bureaucrats' consciousness. They never allowed their cases to remain active for as long as the average case, so if there wasn't a quick break it was quickly declared cold. So he felt like he owed it to her to make sure her family received closure for her violent murder. It seemed so little, but his years in law enforcement had taught him that it often made the difference for victims' families being able to move on with their lives or remaining trapped, bitter and angry. He couldn't let her daughters face that destiny, not if he could help it.

Then when that case was done and dusted and he'd been preparing to leave, disaster had struck, far too close to home and he couldn't walk out. Mike and Molly's daughter, Jannali had taken ill and admitted to the hospital with a condition affecting her liver. The baby was seriously jaundiced and as the doctors became increasing grave about her condition, they began to speak about the possibility that she'd require a liver transplant. Mike and his wife virtually lived at the hospital, and when Steve and Tony weren't there to support them, they were making sure Mike's two businesses were running properly. It was the least they could do to ensure any problems were handled without having to drag the distraught father away from his baby's bedside.

When they started seriously considering donor livers, Tony knew that it was serious, and he was terrified that the baby he'd come to love wouldn't survive. At first Tony thought that the chances of finding a donor liver of similar age and size to Jannali would be difficult, perhaps even impossible. Then he learnt that the liver, due to its remarkable ability to regenerate, was much easier to transplant and a compatible one, or even a part of one, could be cut down to size for an infant. In fact, live liver donation was fairly common where the donor, often a family member, donated a part of their own liver and within six months had regrown the part that had been donated.

It was an amazing piece of surgery and incredible piece of engineering of the vital organ. Molly and Mike were both tested as potential donors and Mike was deemed to be incompatible which left him frustrated and angry. Molly was the same blood type as Jannali, but they found some anomaly that meant she couldn't be a donor. Needless to say, they were shattered.

Then the doctors suggested asking family and friends to get tested and Tony was found to be the same blood type. He was more than happy to donate part of his liver, but when he was filling out the exhaustive medical history he realised that he, too, was probably precluded from donating because of his contact with the pneumonic plague all those years before. As soon as he mentioned it, the doctor had just about had a seizure, and after recovering enough to speak, had disappeared off to consult with his colleagues. It was decided at length that there just wasn't enough information to make a decision about if it was safe or not, and so he was ruled out to be on the safe side.

Tony understood the frustration of the little girl's parents in not being able to donate. He owed this family so much, both for taking him into their home when he'd been at RIMA and latterly when Croc had tripped over him on the street when he was hiding out. He had a liver that soon he would have no further use for, and he couldn't even give a piece of it away to save Jannali's life. He was beyond frustrated, he was seriously pissed off with life. He honestly never expected to, but he'd fallen hook, line and sinker for Mike's little princess.

Hours old, Molly had deposited her in Tony's lap at the hospital and instructed him to get to know his 'niece'. Never having had much to do with babies before, he was nervous. Sure he'd helped deliver one back in Peoria in the middle of a traffic pileup while the expectant mother was trapped in a car waiting for the rescue squad and EMTs to arrive. But he'd been the junior partner, the rookie in their partnership, and had essentially been the cheer squad while his training partner Johnny Lockmann had done all the heavy lifting.

So he was halfway between scared witless and besotted by the fragile life he held in his hands. Staring at her he had to say she wasn't much to look at, although he would never say that to Mike and Molly. She had a shock of jet black hair sticking up in all directions and a scrunched up looking face, especially her tiny nose that sort of reminded him of a dried up potato. Plus she could exercise her lungs with a decibel rating that would leave Abby's alternative music as a pale imitation of loud, but to his amazement he'd fallen instantly in love with the newest Kaderson member. The fact that she stopped her caterwauling when she was handed to him helped convince him that this particular kid at least, didn't hate him.

In fact, as he was 'encouraged' to have a hands on role in her life, changing her puke-inducing full diapers, 'nappies Gator, us Aussies call 'em nappies.' Dressing her in her tiny, pink onesies - Romper suits, play suits or wonder suits. Us Aussies don't call 'em onesies, Gator.' Or when he put her down for a nap with her pacifier, 'dummy man, Aussies call em dummies, hence the term spat the dummy and having a dummy spit,' Mike coached.

And Tony was a goner. Jannali Rosebud Kaderson wrapped him brazenly around her little finger just as she had her daddy, who spoiled her shamelessly, running to pick her up the instant she expressed the slightest displeasure. When she was awake she expected to be entertained, preferably by being held in her parents' arms, or Tony's, she wasn't fussy, just so long as she could check out her most loyal and adoring subjects.

Even at a very early age, she showed a remarkable awareness of her surroundings. Even when demanding a feed, she would often break off mid meal to check out something that caught her interest or if a newcomer entered the room. Tony joked that it was because Mike was Spec. Forces and their situational awareness was exceptional. Molly smirked and said it was because Jannali was super intelligent like her mother. However, they all agreed that the baby was special and proceeded to spoil her accordingly.

When Tony discovered that she liked to listen to him sing to her, he fetched his guitar and played, curious to see what types of music she liked. And she had definite preferences. Sixties and seventies soft rock seemed her favourites, although Irish folk songs were pretty popular too. He even managed to bring her to a piano and played classical music, knowing that there was credible research that it raised children's IQ. Soon the Kaderson's had a respectable library of classic music downloaded to their iPods that meant their child prodigy was immersed in music a good portion of her waking day.

As Molly weaned her, her daddy and her 'uncle' gleefully took over feeding responsibilities, not even minding the baby vomit smell that seemed to perpetually waft around them now. Tony couldn't believe how adept he became at burping the bub, even graduated to bathing her, no mean feat since she was a slippery little sucker when wet and he was terrified of drowning her. He'd looked after her a few times without killing the kid or scaring her psychologically, when Mollie and Mike wanted some Mommy and Daddy special time in a hotel overnight. At least he hoped he hadn't scarred her… so he felt as if he'd exchanged a piece of his heart with his honorary niece and it hurt him really deeply that he couldn't help her and give her his liver.

He'd never had much time for the notion of God or a higher power and after the David/Rivkin fiasco, well he was even more cynical... if that was possible. But after Jannali got sick it had destroyed what little if any faith he still possessed. It seemed too unfair that such an innocent child, and much loved and well taken care of child, could be fading before their eyes. All for the want of a piece of damned liver, and there wasn't a thing they could do to stop her dying. It was further confirmation that the existence of God was a great big lie, perpetuated by religions to try to control the masses. Tony had watched his own mother die when he was only eight, and this hurt just as badly.

Finally, at almost the eleventh hour when the outlook was grim, Molly's cousin twice removed, who the family had been trying desperately to contact, turned up at the hospital and offered to be tested. Since the rest of the family, all the employees at Elite Retrieval Services and the bail bond office had struck out as suitable donors, everybody held their breath as they awaited the test results. Dennis Benson was declared to be a suitable match and immediately offered to give Jannali a part of his liver. The transplant surgery was scheduled for the next day and everyone continued to hold their breath while crossing their fingers and toes until it was over. Their little princess had gown frail waiting, which was going to complicate things, but it seemed that the tiny girl had inherited her father's determination.

Making it through the surgery, she hovered for several days before deciding that she was going to take the precious gift with both hands and use it. As the yellow cast to her skin and eyes began to fade, she began taking an interest in her surroundings once more. Her first smile, her first weak giggle, her first full feed, these milestones were celebrated with even more joy and thankfulness than the regular baby milestones they'd commemorated – her first tooth, her crawling, her first steps. They had nearly lost their princess and realised just how blessed they were to have her back, and Tony doubted if any of them would take her for granted anytime soon.

As he sat with her in his arms, trying to get her to settle and go off to sleep, he observed that she'd reached a stage he recognised only too well. Now that she was out of danger and beginning to feel better, she was feeling cranky and missing her familiar environment and routine. However, she wasn't well enough yet to actually go home. Tony at this point in the recuperative process would be begging to be discharged, and even going so far as to try to escape if necessary, so he understood her grumpiness pretty well. He finally managed to settle her and get her off to sleep by singing to her after pacing the floor as he crooned the entire album of songs from Hotel California. At last she dropped off into an exhausted sleep.

He'd offered to stay with Jannali so Molly and Mike could go out for dinner, since they had both been living at her bedside and desperately needed to take a break. He felt like it was the least he could do since he couldn't be a donor. As he watched her sleep, her tiny body seemed dwarfed by the bed, even though it was child sized. He wished he could do more for the infant that he'd come to love more than he'd have thought possible, than simply watch her for a few hours. It was then that he realised that if nothing else, he could make good and sure that Jannali's father was never taken away from her by Eli David trying to protect him. That wasn't a whole lot perhaps, but it was something, and his resolve strengthened to finally end this feud, once and for all. His life wasn't worth risking everyone else's and that was just an irrefutable fact.

The sooner he remedied the situation, the sooner everyone else's lives could back to normal. He decided he would leave when Jannali was well enough to be discharged and Mike was back at work.

And now, here he was on a flight to London Heathrow, before calling in some favours to help get him into Israel so he could confront Eli David once and for all. With a bit of luck his death, if he played his cards right, would embarrass David sufficiently in the media that Mossad would be forced to sack the sociopath. He'd get his damned pound of flesh, but it might just end up choking him, if Tony was lucky. He'd already sent a pile of incriminating files to a handful of contacts around the world so that bureaucrats in the Israeli and US governments couldn't hush up David's actions after he died. There was a certain twisted irony in ensnaring Eli with a variation on the Trojan horse scenario.

Finally, focusing his attention on the bestseller for the umpteenth time, he tried not to think about the fact that it was likely the last book he would ever read. There was something just too morbid about the notion. Better to simply live in the moment.

He was processed through Heathrow as August Kaderson, and it occurred to him briefly that he was committing an offence travelling on a false passport, although technically it was only half false since Gus was a real person and probably not ever likely to need it himself. He was sure he wouldn't have minded him borrowing it, and it was in a good cause. Snorting at his fancies, he decided that passport fraud was probably the least of his worries at this point. All he needed to worry about was getting into Israel undetected so he could confront the monster that ruined so many lives; his, Ziva's, his family and Tony's de facto family. Just focus on the fact he could bring this to an end once and for all. Eli would get his damned revenge, but hopefully it would end up choking on him, or at the least giving him a monumental case of indigestion and diarrhoea.

The reason he'd stopped over in London was to pick up his British passport and papers. Tony wasn't confident that his Gus Kaderson documents would withstand the scrutiny of the Israelis, who were light years more paranoid about border security than most other countries. Quite probably because their assassins and spies travelled so frequently on fake or stolen passports themselves, flitting in and out of countries undetected. How many times had Ari and Michael entered the US illegally, he wondered. It must make them so much more adept at picking out suspicious travel documents when it came to other people attempting to enter their country.

Tony highly doubted that anyone in Israel knew that he held dual passports because he'd been born in England of an English mother who'd returned to the old country at the imminent birth of her first child to be close to her family. It always seemed rather ironic that people referred to him constantly as 'the Italian' because his father was actually born in America, but of Italian parents, so really he was half English and half American, though because of his place of birth, technically he was English.

Then, after his drunk, good-for-nothing father disowned him when he was 12, he'd use his mother's maiden name, and when he was old enough he'd changed it legally. He became Anthony Daniel Paddington DiNozzo. His friends couldn't understand why he didn't delete the DiNozzo, but he was damned if Senior was going to have his own way, even if he had disowned him, so he kept DiNozzo just to be bloody-minded. Apart from legal documents though, he went by the name Anthony Daniel Paddington. It wasn't until he graduated from the police academy that he found himself using DiNozzo again. Somehow it seem tougher or something – especially in a town where his colleagues seemed to find him to be too much of a 'pretty boy' to be a real cop. Most people associated Paddington with a child's toy bear… not the toughest image for a still green, rookie cop. Knowing his luck, he'd end up nicknamed Tony Bear.

The point was though, that once he started doing undercover work in Philly and then succeeded in pissing off several mafia figures in a major way, his mentor suggested he should keep fall back documents and anything else that might prove useful somewhere safe, if he ever needed to go on the run. So Tony had applied for a British passport using his middle name and Paddington. Both were his legal names, just not his full name, and when he'd last made a trip over to London to attend his Uncle Clive's funeral, he'd left his emergency stash of documents with a family friend.

Things were happening at work that didn't sit right and he knew he might need to disappear for a while if things got too bad. How prophetic were those feelings! If only he'd taken off then before everything went to hell in a hand basket, but what was it that Ducky often said? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

So, he didn't dare try to enter Israel on his real American Anthony DiNozzo passport, which he felt certain Director David would have flagged, or his August Kaderson one, which was fake. Instead he decided to risk using his English passport in the name Daniel Paddington, fairly confident it was safe. He only needed it to secure a single entry without alerting officials, which was why he was stopping off in London to pick it up from the family friend, and to see a man about a dog.

Mrs. Dimity Anders was the Paddington family nanny – proudly third generation and quite advanced in years since Tony's mother, Charlotte Eloise Paddington DiNozzo, was what was commonly referred to 'as a change of life baby'. She had arrived two decades after the birth of her two brothers, Clive and Charles Paddington, and Dimity had reared all three of the Paddington offspring. The retired nanny was still quite hale and hearty, even if she now lived with her son and daughter-in-law. She was the last generation of Anders to work for his family, as the subsequent generations failed to follow her into the profession, much to her chagrin.

Tony had first run into this paragon of virtue the summer of his 17th year when he'd spent the entire summer vacation in England, staying with his Uncle Clive. Although technically old enough to be his great uncle, his mother's brother had taken a shine to him and didn't seem bored with having to entertain him, which made a welcome change for the young teenager. And unlike Senior, his uncle wasn't constantly telling him he'd end up in the gutter or causing misery to his friends and family. He even encouraged him to follow his dreams rather than pursue a career in business, unlike Senior, who somehow thought that even though he'd disowned him years before, he still had a right to dictate what he did with his life.

Clive told him stories about the family and let slip, probably accidentally on purpose, to a very impressionable teenager that the Paddingtons had a proud tradition of serving in Her Majesty's Service. He even introduced him to several MI5 contacts – past and present, though back home people scoffed when he told them about Uncle Clive being a spy. Yet many years later when he was working undercover on the La Grenouille Operation, he met some of those people again. So Tony had thought his Uncle Clive was almost as impressive as James Bond and Thomas Magnum, although he didn't have all the cool gadgets or the girls.

Clive had thoughtfully invited Dimity back to stay at the Paddington ancestral home so she could spend time getting to know him. She doted on him and Tony found himself in the unaccustomed situation of being the centre of attention and coddled. His mother's old nanny shared stories with him about his mother, and though he was a typical teenager and easily bored, he did keep in touch with her over the years, and as he grew older, became more interested in hearing stories about his mother's childhood.

While Dimity had that whole stiff upper lipped thing going on that his Uncle Clive laughingly referred to as her 'jolly hockey sticks' approach, she reminded Tony of Mary Poppins in that she wasn't demonstrative, but she still cared about him. Which was totally fine with him, since he unaccustomed to physical displays of affection directed at him. Even years later, Abby's rib crushing hugs still caught him off guard. Nevertheless, Dimity showed her affection for him in a most practical manner by autocratically commandeering the kitchen and cooking him all manner of strange dishes and sweet things; food that had been the foundation of rearing generations of Paddington children.

His mother's old nanny baked him sweet confections for high teas and elevenses – the English certainly had a lot of quaint customs – such as scones, pikelets, Scottish Dundee cake and Chelsea buns, while producing hearty traditional meals such a Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding and Shepherd's Pie. But it was her fussing over him in a no nonsense manner that truly cemented their friendship. While she along with the rest of the Paddington clan were scathing about his father's moral compass, or lack of one, Dimity didn't seem to hold it against him that he'd sullied the blue-blooded gene pool of the Paddingtons. Most of his English relatives seemed to think his presence in their aristocrat line was a deliberate insult and treated him accordingly, with the exception of Tony's Uncle Clive.

So after his uncle died, it was almost inevitable that she was the only one he remained in touch with. His cousin Crispian, never fond of him in the first place, now resented him violently after Clive left a sizeable chunk of change to Anthony when he passed away. As the so-called mongrel grandson, he was barely one step up from the bastard child, and barely tolerated in upper-class families, usually produced out of a liaison with the hired help. Which was why his dumbass cousin demanded he pay back an IOU plus interest that Tony insisted on signing to Clive when his uncle had given him money to help pay his way through college.

Somehow, he'd concluded sardonically, he seemed to have the knack of pissing his family off, and most of the time he hadn't even done anything to warrant it, either. To this day, he still didn't know what it was that he'd done to piss off Senior so much that he up and disowned him when he was twelve. I mean you don't simply wake up one morning and decide today would be a good day to disown your only son. Even years later when he went on the wagon, his father fussed and deflected, but never came up with a reasonable explanation except for he was drinking heavily at that time. Like that was an excuse, and Tony should just accept it and move on. Seriously, was it any wonder why he'd learnt early on to rely on no one else but himself? As if he would ever seriously consider going to Senior when he was in trouble, or anyone else for that matter.

So Tony figured it was fitting that if he should visit with any of his family one last time, it should be with Dimity while he collected his documents. She made her daughter-in-law cook a pleasant lunch for him and was curious about his changed appearance. He explained his long blonde locks and different eye colour by way of an extended undercover gig, and then she demanded to hear about his escapades. So he told her various stories about impersonating drug dealers and gun runners and prison escapees and assassins, and censured any of the really dangerous bits so he wouldn't worry her. After all she may still have a mind like a steel trap, but her heart was that of a nonagenarian.

Tony smiled when he thought about the fact that in his will, he left Uncle Clive's money to Dimity's great grandchildren and his honorary niece, Jannali Kaderson. How ironic was it that a good chunk of the Paddington fortune would end up belonging to the great grandkids of the faithful family nanny. His grandfather was probably rolling in his grave at the very notion. He'd made sure that it would be properly set up in trust funds when he'd updated and signed his will when he visited Uncle Clive's solicitor when he first touched down. He wanted his wishes to be tied up so it wasn't contestable by his relatives and so Dimity wouldn't refuse to accept it, as her sense of propriety well may force her to. She, like the Paddingtons, especially his cousin Crispian, will be absolutely horrified, but it will serve them right. Apart from Clive, Dimity was the only one who ever made him feel like a member of the family.

Then of course there was Senior, who would be shocked upon learning that Clive left him a reasonably large sum of money, and Tony never told him about it. In fact, he deliberately told his teammates he got nada, zilch, zero, so his money grasping, conman father wouldn't somehow learn about it at a later point, since Abby and Ziva seemed to think the sun shone out of his butt. To find out at the reading of his will about Clive's bequest and to know that Tony left him nothing, his dear ol' dad would be fit to be tied. Not that he was leaving trust funds to Jannali and the three Anders kiddies just to piss off Crispian et al and Senior; that was just a lucky happenstance.

So he was cheered by spending some time with Dimity, and then he took the opportunity to call in a few favours from his contacts in the British Secret Service. He knew he might as well call in his markers, since he wouldn't be needing them after this. Tony just needed their assistance creating a diversion to help him get through Israeli Customs. Once he was out the door, he planned on quickly heading to Acre, where his MI5 contacts informed him Eli was holidaying with one of his mistresses, a Dafna Mizrahi, who was slightly younger than Ziva. Shaking his head he realised why she seemed so bedazzled by Senior's charm. To be honest, he wouldn't have been that surprised if she'd ended up as his step-mother. Senior and Eli obviously had at least one thing in common – a taste for much younger women.

Tony was relieved to hear about his vacation plans, as he knew that it would be easier to confront him away from Tel Aviv and his Mossad environment. He'd spun his contacts a cock and bull story about wanting to confront Eli, to reach some sort of understanding so he could finally stop running. To his ears, it sounds implausible, but then they didn't know the son of a bitch…not like he did, so perhaps it really sounded like a reasonable scenario. They agreed to help and that's kinda all that really mattered.

Certainly, no one seemed to have the slightest inkling of his real intentions, and for that he was glad. Pleased that if nothing else, he was such a good actor, or was that a good liar? Were they one and the same? He wasn't even sure if it was relevant any more. He was weary… three years was a long time to be in deep cover, but soon… really soon, he could rest.

An Eye For an Eye

Acre Israel:

Simon Rosen observed Eli David and his much younger mistress, the beautiful Dafna Mizrahi, as they wandered around the Akko markets, which was located in the old part of town. Such a picturesque place to visit and engage in a romantic tryst, the deeply historic walled-port city had been continuously settled since Phoenician times and the current old city of Akko was representative of 18th and 19th century Ottoman Empire with its mosques, baths and citadel. Yet above and below the old town of Akko, surprisingly intact, were structures from the medieval Crusader period that gave a wonderful insight. He knew that its attractions, fortress, sea walls, beaches and marina, not to mention the museums and the markets, meant that his team were likely to be kept extremely active as they shadowed the director.

In fact, that was where he found himself now as the pair strolled around arm in arm, stopping frequently to look at various stalls, even purchasing a range of spices and sampling the fresh foods. He noticed a tall blonde man with obscenely long hair, brushing the collar of his shirt, strolling around the markets. Rosen had the feeling the man seemed to be rather interested in Director David, even if he studiously ignored him as he fossicked in the Turkish marketplace. Perhaps he was the contact they were hoping for. Eli had been careful about incriminating himself with his vendetta with Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, but in the end, even he was only human. At some point, everyone got sloppy and made a mistake, perhaps this could be the break they'd been hoping for.

The Mossad team leader, who owed his allegiance to Associate Director Orli Elbaz and the Prime Minister, rather than the director's obsessively loyal cadre of supporters, paid close attention to his target. He knew if he messed up, career suicide was probably the least of his worries, so he was at pains to conceal his presence from the director and his protection team. The last thing they needed was to tip off the director, if he was finally going to show his hand. Yet as he concentrated upon his target, he couldn't help but continue to notice the blonde fellow. He moved like an athlete or a predator, with a natural grace and assurance, and he seemed to have an uncanny situational awareness as he glanced around constantly, seeming to sense he was being observed.

This suggested to Rosen that he might be in their business, or at the least, had military training, although his hair hinted otherwise. To his experienced eye, Goldilocks didn't appear to be carrying a gun, but he couldn't be absolutely certain on that score. Therefore, Simon would assume that he was trouble should Associate Director Elbaz order him taken into custody for questioning, so they would need to tread carefully. For now, they'd keep their eyes open to see if he and the director made contact.

As he shadowed Director David and his current mistress around, Simon assigned another of his team to follow Goldilocks, although he still kept half an eye on the tall loose limbed man, who he decided was older than he first thought. When Eli and his love-struck companion stopped in one of the many little cafes in the old Akko to eat lunch, Aaron Weissman reported the westerner was eating at a different café and met up with a young woman. A security check revealed that she was a local girl who worked at The Wine Bar in the Efendi Hotel, a 900-year-old Crusader cellar that had been converted into a very popular wine bar for guests and locals. Weissman reported that the couple flirted with each other outrageously, and Rosen instructed him to continue his surveillance.

There were plenty of potential opportunities to exchange information in Akko, with its bustling and narrow streets, where it would seem to be quite innocent, no need to have a formal meeting. Yet so far, the two men hadn't made contact, although the westerner seemed to be a fairly subtle individual. If he was following the director as he suspected, then he certainly wasn't blatant about it. It was more instinct on Rosen's part that had sparked his suspicions, almost that he was deliberately ignoring him. He'd learnt to listen to his intuition, so that was what he'd do.

As the director and his much younger mistress headed off after lunch to explore Hamam al Basha – The Turkish Bath, their other target checked out the Eastern Sea Wall skirting Akko Bay, flirting with several attractive females as he strolled around. He finally met up with another local woman from the Akko marketplace at the Wall Beach where they rolled their trousers up and walked barefoot along the shore holding hands and chatting. Simon sighed when he heard the sit rep from Weissman. Perhaps this tourist who they'd ascertained was staying at the backpackers' hostel was simply a tourist, after all. Suspicion could be infectious.

After admiring the view of the Mediterranean Sea from the Western Sea Wall, the director and his mistress made their way to the Bahai Gardens and Shrine in the northern part of Acre for what appeared to be just a leisurely stroll like a pair of lovers on an idyllic tryst. Orli's spy noted somewhat cynically that the pair just couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other, and he really had to give the director credit, he did have excellent taste. Dafna was quite exquisite with her heart-shaped face, knockout figure and laughing eyes, although she was young enough to be his daughter, but then Director David always seemed to prefer his women much younger.

He supposed that as a very powerful and prosperous man, not to mention considered a handsome widower and most eligible bachelor, he had no trouble attracting gorgeous young women to warm his bed. Still, Simon couldn't help but wonder if Mizrahi knew that she wasn't the only beautiful young woman he was sleeping with?

When Aaron alerted him via his coms that the tourist he'd nicknamed Goldilocks - who they'd determined had registered at the backpackers' hostel under the name of Daniel Paddington, had just turned up at the gardens too, he became even more suspicious. If the pair were going to meet and not just pass Intel, this was a perfect place to run into each other. His partner expressed the view that Paddington seemed to be an incorrigible flirt, so perhaps he wasn't so much interested in the director as he was interested in his mistress Dafna and was hoping to seduce her. Left unspoken was Weissman's opinion that she was obviously worth seducing. Simon conceded it was a possible explanation, but there was just something about the man that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He knew he wasn't one of their operatives, or even one of the freelancers that Director David was famous for recruiting when the situation arose. Eli was especially renown for hiring mercenaries to operate in foreign countries, where he couldn't help but meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations, more often than not, those of their allies. Eli was a power hungry, control freak who thought if it wasn't a Mossad run operation (and for Mossad read an Eli David Op.) then it was amateur hour and bound to failure. Consequently, he had no compunction in interfering in other countries' business and curried favours like most people breathed.

To be honest, Simon wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover that Eli David had discovered a way to extract mileage out his need to urinate and defecate. He was just that sort of guy who would find a way to extract an advantage out of just about anything. Mossad had always used sex to achieve their goals, but under Director David, he'd elevated it to a whole new ball game, which included ordering an agent to use it to get close to his own daughter to spy on her. Ari Haswari's mother wasn't the only woman to discover his ruthlessness when it came to matters of the heart or procreation, not when it came to gaining every possible advantage over his allies and adversaries. And he was doubtful if she'd been the first to one to want to castrate him, either. The man sure knew how to make enemies.

As he decided to fill his boss in on the latest developments, he hoped against hope that this Paddington character was going to be the lynch pin they'd been waiting for to be able to get rid of Eli David, once and for all. No one person should ever have so much power. That old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely, was most certainly the case when it came to Eli David. As he waited for Orli to pick up the phone, he frowned, noticing that something was most definitely odd. Paddington had managed to corral the director and his companion and was herding them covertly towards the fountain. As if that wasn't weird enough, Eli, a highly trained and wily operative, allowed it to happen but before he could react, Goldilocks had managed to separate the lovers. From Weismann's account, telling Dafna rather bluntly, to piss off, so there went the seduction theory.

What was even more inexplicable was that it sure looked like Eli was afraid of the man. Rosen abruptly ended the call to his boss, knowing that the director's protection detail would in all likelihood shoot Paddington down, which he wanted to avoid at all costs. Probably the only thing preventing it was that they happened to be at a holy shrine with tourists around and his bodyguards would have been hanging back to give the lovers privacy. In fact, they probably thought that Paddington was there to rendezvous with their boss, too. Now Rosen was determined to know who this Paddington character was and what his beef was with their esteemed director. The last thing he wanted was to see him get him shot, so he ordered Aaron to arrest him, preferably unharmed. It would mean tipping his hand to the director, who would then know he was being followed by Associate Director Elbaz, but Simon would claim that they'd heard about a supposed assassination plot and had placed an extra team on him to catch the killer. Not ideal, but he needed to find out what Paddington, or whoever he was, was up to and he couldn't do that it the man was dead.

As he moved swiftly to neutralise the threat to Eli, and more importantly as far as Rosen was concerned, to protect the mysterious westerner, who was allegedly British, Aaron continued to give him a running commentary via his coms. The man had trapped Director David up against the impressive wrought iron gates, with no place left to go and was yelling at him.

"Why don't you kill me, Eli? Do it! You've spent the last three years hunting me down. I'm ready, do it, you yellow-bellied, coward. What are you waiting for, damn it!"

He was, according to Weissman, still yelling abuse at the director after being wrestled to the ground seconds before Eli's bodyguard overcame his reluctance to fire in a religious place of worship. Later at the debriefing, it was revealed that the man was of the Bahai faith and was loath to open fire, which explained why their crazy man with a death wish was lucky enough to still be alive. Meanwhile, the director appeared to be acting completely out of character, shaking and having to sink to the ground when his legs refused to hold him up anymore. It was almost as if… but no, that could not be. Eli David couldn't be afraid of an unarmed man that with his training he could easily have killed with his bare hands, if he'd really wanted to. Yet it did appear as if Paddington had ample opportunity to take him down, and while it would have been the last thing he did, Eli's bodyguard had definitely dropped the ball. Lucky for him that Director David was still alive.

Simon couldn't help feeling disappointment that Mr. Paddington hadn't made everyone's lives a lot less complicated and killed the bastard, though. He clearly bore him ill will - that much was clear to everyone, and he looked like the sort that could take him out, if he'd been armed, but he hadn't. The Mossad team leader desperately wanted to know why not, and for that to happen he needed to interrogate the angry and distraught man to find out. With a little bit of luck, they may still salvage something useful out of this mess. As he strode towards the gate, Eli's bodyguard was trying to take charge of the situation, even from several metres away, he barked at the idiot that his team took precedent and to stand down. Not willing to back down completely, he went to the director to establish his status and await orders. The chastened bodyguard also ordered the second guard to escort Mizrahi back to the director, fairly certain he would as he would want to be assured she was unharmed.

As he approached, Officer Rosen could hear Mr. Paddington working up a head of steam, and it was obvious he knew Eli David and his family, rather well.

"So what, not got the balls for pulling the trigger yourself, Eli? Fine to send out Rivkin to do your dirty work or Ziva to kill her own brother and your son. What kind of monster does that to his own son and daughter, asshole? Or orders an agent to sleep with his daughter to make sure she's still loyal to you? And how the freakin' hell could you not know Ari had gone rogue, or was he like Michael, following your orders when he killed Todd? Was it all a big game to you to get Ziva in with Gibbs? What awaited Tali if a bomb hadn't claimed her life? Would she be married to a wealthy Hamas terrorist by now, reporting back to you or working in a brothel in Palestine, spying for you?"

Simon tried to control his shock, not just at the information spewed forth from the Englishman's mouth, although he didn't sound English, but the strange reaction to him that their director was exhibiting. He was looking guilty or sickened, which was unthinkable, since Rosen was convinced that the man had a sociopathic personality…so it just didn't add up. Nor did the insight their prisoner had into the David family. Who was this guy who was still attacking the Mossad director verbally? He decided to let it just play out since Eli was in no physical danger. Paddington wasn't even armed. All the while they had checked for weapons, he continued to berate Director David.

"What's the matter with you…you didn't mind getting your hands dirty three years ago when you interrogated me, knowing damned well I was innocent. But it didn't stop you trying to make me confess to a murder I didn't commit, you slimy rat bastard. Even knowing I was injured, you didn't even blink. So why wouldn't you just kill me now and get it over with, why make everybody else suffer. Why…"

Paddington slumped over, heaving mightily before proceeding to empty his guts up as everyone stood by opened mouthed. Finally, after a couple of dry heaves he roughly wiped his mouth onto his shoulder to help clear the taste of vomit away, since his hands were zip tied behind his back. Suddenly his head shot up and he fixed Eli David with a piercing look that seemed to skewer him, before yelling at him.

"Just who the fuck are you? You're not Eli David. Where is he?"

Simon was closely watching his director as Paddington made his dramatic announcement and he caught a tiny flicker of panic in Eli's eyes, before he managed to pull himself together and ordered them to get the prisoner out of his sight. Seemingly following his orders, he led the distraught man away, who seemed to have sunk into despair after his declaration, eager to find some place where he could interrogate him privately. They had a mobile command post set up on the north western outskirts of Acre and he called for backup to transport them back to base.

Once back there, he quickly contacted Orli to bring her up to speed. He needed her down here to take charge of the situation. It was definitely well above his pay grade. Ordinarily, he would simply order everyone back to Tel Aviv, but if what Paddington suspected was true and that was not Eli David, he didn't want to go too far away from his quarry. And yet, he couldn't demand that the Director of Mossad return to HQ to prove his identity. He didn't have the seniority to either make such a call, or frankly, the gonads to enforce it. He needed Elbaz to get her tokhis down here immediately!

When she picked up the phone, he demanded without preamble, "I need you down here now, Boss. How soon can you get here?"

Orli chuckled. "Is 15 minutes soon enough?"

"No, situation is critical, but better than I anticipated. How'd you manage that, Boss?"

"Well, when you hung up on me… and I will have a full explanation for that later, Simon… I decided that I needed to get down there to see for myself what was going on. The chopper's new ETA is 12.5 minutes… now report, Rosen. What's going on down there?"

Her most trusted right hand man quickly filled her in on what had occurred along with his thoughts, impressions and suspicions. After several minutes of nothing but the sounds of the Mossad helicopter in the background, she issued orders.

"When I arrive I want to know everything about our guest. Who he is, what his connection to the director is and why he thinks that is not the director. NOW GO!"

Rosen dared to venture a single question. "Any idea who Paddington is?"

"Yes, now go and confirm it!" Orli ordered before ending the conversation and her second in command sighed before heading in to interrogate Paddington. He only had about eight minutes or less to get the truth out of the prisoner, so he hoped the man would be cooperative. Orli would be expecting results upon her arrival, and while Mossad specialised in getting information out of anyone, it was always a question of not if, merely when. Time was a commodity that should always be cherished, but in this situation if Paddington's suspicions were well founded, then time was an even more critical element. They needed to take advantage of this situation, whatever the devil that might be, and for that to happen they needed him to cooperate.

When Orli raced to the mobile command centre after exiting the prime minister's personal helicopter, Simon Rosen emerged triumphant, with literally seconds to spare, relieved that he had something for his hard-nosed boss. And what a bombshell it was too.

"Report!" She fired off impatiently not bothering with social platitudes.

"Daniel Paddington is really Anthony Daniel Paddington DiNozzo, otherwise known as Former US NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo. He is technically British, but holds dual nationality and therefore has both British and American passports. He entered Israel on his British passport, which it seems no one was aware of several days ago. Ziva David would seem to have made a grave error in not declaring his dual nationality when she prepared his dossier for Ari Haswari," he observed, in a masterful display of understatement.

"And his goal in confronting the director? Was he trying to get himself killed?"

"Yes, Boss. Something like that." Simon nodded wryly.

Frowning she demanded, "What! Why?"

"I'm no shrink, Associate Director, but I think the guy is suicidal. Depressed perhaps. He feels guilty about the fact that his killing of Officer David has thrown everyone's lives into chaos and danger. He disappeared, but his former work mates would not let him go and have been tirelessly tracking him, along with Samuel Rivkin, for the past three years. The successful trap laid to catch Rivkin shocked and appalled him and placed his friends' lives in danger. Yet as he pointed out, it also served no true purpose because Director David could and would simply order someone else to take his place. Plus, DiNozzo is guilty about the people who have currently been helping him hide and he decided if he gave Eli what he wanted, then he would let the matter drop, and those people DiNozzo is concerned about would be safe from collateral damage."

"But why not kill Director David? You said yourself he had the means and opportunity today?"

"He believed that the rest of the David family might continue to pursue the vendetta if he killed Eli. Apparently, he spent a year undercover in the mafia, bringing them down incidentally, and says the Davids are as vengeful as the Mafiosa and they never forget a blood feud."

Orli considered the information, and didn't disagree with Anthony DiNozzo's assessment. It was not impossible that Eli's brother would continue to pursue him if he'd killed Eli, even in self-defense. Sighing, she made mental note that any termination would need to implicate a scapegoat to ensure the safety of herself and the prime minister. There was also the possibility that Ilan Bodnar would seek vengeance since he had latterly become Eli's protégé, even his surrogate son, after Michael's fall from grace. She had no intention of doing her duty to Israel and getting rid of a madman and then ending up like Anthony DiNozzo.

"Sounds like survivor guilt to me. What makes you think he is right that the man you have been watching for the past 36 hours is not Director David?"

"Paddington… um, DiNozzo reckons that Eli didn't recognise him even when he challenged him on Ziva, Ari and Samuel. I would agree with his assessment. Then when he accused him of being an impostor, there was a momentary flicker that looked like guilt to me, before he quickly masked it. Plus, he allowed DiNozzo to call the shots, corralled him and separated Dafna Mizrahi from him. The director would never fall into a trap so easily. DiNozzo said even he was surprised how easy it was to get him alone. Thought he was setting a trap for him, but David acted nervous, disgusted when he accused him of being a monster who'd send his own daughter to become a whore."

He looked at his boss. She was considering his arguments, her dark intense eyes staring into middle distance as she deliberated upon the options. Hesitating, he took a deep breath before continuing.

"Surely, you can tell if we are dealing with an impostor, Ma'am?"

"And why would you think that?" She questioned, toying with her subordinate.

"I… ah… Officer David revealed that you and the director were… close when he separated from his wife," he stated cautiously. While those weren't his daughter's exact words, he wasn't about to repeat her assertion that the home wrecker was having a torrid affair with David before they separated. He still had ambitions, and was quite attached to his balls, too.

Shrugging, she simply conceded, "Perhaps, Simon. I'd best meet with him and determine the veracity of Mr. DiNozzo's claim. If true, we need to determine whether he's been kidnapped or this is some elaborate ruse to fly undetected under our radar."

"And if so, what the devil is the bastard up to?" Rosen observed.

An Eye For An Eye

Orli waited impatiently for the prime minister's aide to pick up. C'mon, c'mon pick up the damned phone.

"Orli, you have something for the prime minister?" Jakob Levinson enquired hopefully.

"What makes you say that?"

Levinson chuckled. "Just a feeling, my dear. So?"

"Yeah, you could say there's been a break though at the impasse."

"Excellent. Sit Rep, Associate Director Elbaz," he directed, expectantly.

"No, not excellent. Eli David has been in the wind for almost three days now and we don't know what the devil he's up to."

"But you said he was tucked up in Acre in a boutique hotel with one of his mistresses. Your team has been shadowing them."

"No, we've been chasing around after Benjamin Goldblum, his double. Eli found someone that was his body doppelganger and organised for him to have his face altered to match his quite some years ago. Goldblum has been filling in for Eli for years now, without anyone being the wiser," she reported, her voice betraying her fury.

"Feh! What gave him away?"

"Anthony DiNozzo came to Israel to confront the director and offered his life to get Eli/Benjamin to stop hounding his friends and former teammates. I think the attack on his old team in the cemetery in Indianapolis a few months ago was the final straw. One of his friends got shot. The man is torn up by survivor guilt, in my humble opinion. Still, he managed to realise that Goldblum had no idea who he was and that he'd allowed himself to be trapped far too easily. DiNozzo could have assassinated him quite easily had he been so inclined. He's a dangerous individual, and after all, he did take out Michael Rivkin and evade his brother, also a trained assassin, for three years."

"What a balagan if he had killed Goldblum," the prime minister's aide remarked, thinking of how if Eli had gone to the trouble of switching DNA in the database, they might never have discovered the substitution. It was rumoured that David had a fortune in diamonds and gold coins hidden away for a rainy day. Had this been his intention all along? Set his doppelganger up to take the bullet he must realise would inevitably take him out one day.

"Any clue what he's up to?"

"Some. He flew out of the country under the name David Steiner. It is a pseudonym he also used many years ago."

Her voice betrayed some irritation. Damn but her 2IC had been right about her affair with the director giving her an advantage. She still had serious regrets that when she was younger, prettier and oh so impetuous, she had broken up a marriage. Not that she believed he would have kept it in his pants if she'd turned him down. He would have found someone else – even now he had no difficulty in finding a number of young women eager to share his bed, but maybe a young Ziva and Tali wouldn't have looked at her as if she murdered their puppy.

"He flew coach class into Canada, then slipped into the US where we lost him in New York. Although, he did make a call to Leon Vance a couple of weeks ago."

There was a mutual silence as both considered that fact.

Levinson shook his head, observing ironically, "I guess we don't need to consult a mystic to figure out what his end term goal is. I wonder what strategy he thought to track him down when Rivkin couldn't manage it. Still, with Mr. DiNozzo safely in our custody, he can't get to him. The irony is that they must have practically crossed each others paths mid-flight, would be funny if not so serious," Jakob pointed out, as Orli nodded wryly.

"There is that. And luckily, he has giving us the opportunity we've been waiting for. It should be easier to carry out in the US."

"It would seem that he has left himself wide open for us to proceed with Operation Colonic Irrigation. Can you find him?" Levinson demanded.

Rolling her eyes at the fancy name for Op Enema, she nodded, even though she knew that Levinson was unable to see her. "We have former Director Vance's phones tapped, Jakob, and his house is now under 24 hour surveillance. If Eli contacts him, we'll know. And we are looking for his bolt hole in DC and surrounds. In fact, there was a suspicious death of a sailor that have all the hallmarks of a Kidon assassination about it. I sense the hand of our esteemed director all over it. We'll find him, assure the prime minister for me."

"Very good, my dear Orli. A chance like this may not come our way again. How many people know about Goldblum?"

"Apart from myself, Simon Rosen, Aaron Wiessman, DiNozzo obviously, and more than likely Eli's mistress, Dafna Mizrahi."

"Good, keep it that way. Take him into protective custody. If he cooperates, he may well get his life back again…if everything goes to our plan." It went without saying if Eli's double failed to cooperate, he would probably just disappear.

"I must pass on this most promising development. We need you back here immediately so we can begin refining details of…"

"Operation Enema. I understand. I'm on my way."

Arriving back in Tel Aviv, a message awaited her. Turn on ZNN.