A/N:Thank you to everyone who is following and faving and a special thanks to everyone who makes the effort to leave a review. It isn't surprising that a few written words can motivate an author so much. Also I need to thank Arress for once again Beta'ing this chapter which is very busy and a special mention to the Trippies - Arress and Frakking Toasters for reading and making some extremely helpful suggestions. I'm so busy making sure that all the loose ends are tied up as this story reaches its climax that I neglected to give proper attention to some descriptive elements of the story. Thanks guys! And a spoiler warning for the rest of the story - there will be at least one more character death. No, before you ask, Tony doesn't die but for everyone else - all bets are off- well apart from Celestial Dave of course. Don't hold me to this bu I think that t two more chapters will probably wrap this up. Enjoy :)
An Eye for an Eye Leaves Everybody Blind
Jimmy Palmer 15th August 2012
I was hanging out in the doctors' lounge, hands clasp tightly around a large mug of coffee. Not that I needed it – I'd already drunk a bucketful of the stuff tonight and it was making me jumpy and nervous. I was pacing up and down, channel surfing between the local DC news and ZNN's coverage, but at the moment ZNN were reporting on the latest natural disaster somewhere in Asia. Meanwhile, the local DC news was just rehashing old stuff about Ducky and Abby's abduction, interspersed with biographical pieces detailing their professional careers and achievements. The abductors had released several short pieces of footage of them both, proving they were okay, for the moment at least, and claiming that it was connected to an old drug and prostitution case when Gibbs and Tony had been the sole members of the MCRT.
The abductors were ordering Tony to turn himself over in exchange for the lives of Dr. Mallard and Abby Sciuto. Of course, I don't believe for a moment that this isn't related to Eli David and his obsessive pursuit for revenge. It seemed like Samuel Rivkin had been replaced by another Kidon assassin, hell bent on killing him for supposed wrongs he'd committed. Apparently, when a Mossad assassin went rogue and tried to kill him, he was supposed to stand there and say, "go right ahead – it's fine, kill me."
I can't help wondering what if the ICE agent's family that Rivkin killed during SecNav Davenport's security conference had sworn revenge on Rivkin for his death - how would Mossad and Eli have dealt with the situation if the shoe was on the other foot? I suspect there would have been outrage and demands for us to arrest them. It could have easily sparked an international incident. There's one thing I've learnt about revenge, and that is that if it's your revenge then it is a noble and just quest, but if it's someone else's, then it's cruel and self-indulgent. Life can be quite the joke, as long as you personally aren't the punch line.
Since the story first broke tonight, it has been an agonising shift, not to mention interminably slow. In a terrible irony, the ER, which was usually a nuthouse, had become ridiculously quiet. Five-year-old Keisha had come in with a middle ear infection – probably the end result of having a glue ear. I treated it with antibiotics, Tylenol and a referral to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to organise surgery for grommets. A croupy baby had been admitted, an alcohol poisoned college-aged kid whose stomach we pumped, but the most serious case we dealt with was a 76-year-old male with an infarct. Not really enough to keep one ER doc busy, and certainly not enough for four of us. It's not that I wanted people to get sick or have accidents, but I really wished that it was at least busy enough in the ER that I didn't have so much time to think. I was imagining far too many possible outcomes that might befall my friends.
McGee was sending me regular updates via emails, and although he wasn't involved in the actual investigation, he was using his analyst skills to try to find them. He informed me that Tony had yet to make contact, and really, while I had no doubt that he would come through for them when he found out, he might not have access to a TV. While McGee was vague about whether the FBI, who was point on the case, would let him to surrender to the abductors, the Tony DiNozzo I know wouldn't let a minor detail like that stop him if he thought he could save their lives even if it cost him his own.
He would find a way whether he had the Fibbies approval or not. A man who still recovering from the plague and pneumonia but took Tim's place at the car holding the bomb Ari left for the team at the crime scene so McGee and Cate could get clear, wouldn't hesitate for Ducky and Abby.
I don't usually wish ill on people – kinda goes with the gig of being a doctor and the whole 'first do no harm' credo, but tonight I am so wishing that Eli David would choke on a chicken bone, step off the curb and into the path of an oncoming bus, or maybe the elevator he was riding in would snap its cable and plunge 40 stories to his death. Yes, I admit I had violent and comforting fantasies of him meeting a gruesome and vicious end, and that's not cool for Dr. Palmer I admit, but for Jimmy Palmer I think it is pretty damned normal.
The reason why I am imagining the Mossad director's demise is quite simple really. I truly believe the only way we can get a resolution that includes a happily-ever-after scenario is if Eli David departs this mortal coil, as Dr. Mallard would say. The fact is that even if we manage to save Abby and Ducky, it won't be over, not until Eli takes his last breath.
I wonder if anyone has ever thought about eliminating him to remove the threat and give Tony back his life. Assassinating the father of the assassins; what a horrible irony that would be. Surely Gibbs with his Spec Ops background would have run the numbers to see if it was feasible. Perhaps Tony has too – although not in a heat-of-the-moment, eye-for-an-eye sort of way, but in a much more cold-bloodedly pragmatic, this-is-what-needs-to-be-done problem solving mode. I guess it's a no brainer that Gibb probably has considered it the more I think about it, but I also imagine that it would be much easier said than done. Eli would be bound to have an impenetrable protection detail, much more so than the Director of NCIS. Probably the only way to take him down would be an inside job to set him up.
I admit that I am feeling a mite uncomfortable about the homicidal thoughts I'm having, but really, in some ways it isn't that far removed from what surgeons need to do on a regular basis. If an organ is diseased and causing harm to their patient, they have to cut into them and remove it. If a limb becomes cancerous or gangrenous, there is no choice but to remove it in order to save the patient. And it wouldn't be hard to argue that Eli David, with his blinding hatred and his thirst for revenge, was pretty much like a rotting, gangrenous appendage, or that he was threatening the viability of other lives around him. Surgeons separating conjoined twins often were forced to choose which one should live based upon the viability of the pair, and the truth is Eli David was making it impossible for Tony to exist, so if a choice was to be made, then the revenge seeking, rabid SOB should die – it was that simple.
Honestly, when Eli David started using innocent, salt-of-the-earth types like my friends to achieve his goals, well, it wasn't so shocking that I should go all bloodthirsty. I remember Dr. Mallard becoming uncharacteristically murderous after Haswari shot Cate. He was already het up over what happened to Gerald, and he mentioned several times looking forward to getting Ari onto his autopsy table. So, I'm not going to get all guilty over having fantasies about taking Eli David down. I might be oozing guilt over cancelling on Abby because of being called into work unexpectedly, especially considering how the shift had suddenly gone quiet as a morgue. But nope, I refuse to feel bad because I'm thinking about getting rid of a cancerous collection of cells.
Wondering where Tony is right now, I picture him in some seedy ghetto, tracking down some low life predator who gets their sicko jollies inflicting pain on sex workers, runaways, and drug addicts. Which could explain why we are yet to hear from him, since there aren't exactly plasmas on every street corner where he's been hanging around. Well, that is if Dr. Spencer Reid's hypothesis about where Tony's been in the last three years is correct. It feels totally like something he'd be doing, though. Not solving crimes would drive him nuts.
Looking at the clock I saw it was 2.30 am and I wondered if Spencer was awake. We'd kind gotten together a few times since the initial meeting I'd had with him and he told me about his headaches. I knew he didn't always sleep well and that he was also a night owl. Not surprising really that he had trouble closing done his prodigious brain so he could fall asleep. I really wanted to talk to the profiler and get his read on the situation. Hell, I think I was hoping to be reassured – to be told, 'it's all going to work out fine.' Yeah, stupid, but our inner child just wants to be safe and protected in times of crisis, and mine's no different to most; it was feeling pretty distressed at the moment.
So, I sent Spencer a text, figuring if he was asleep he wouldn't see it until the morning… well, later this morning as technically it is already morning, but you know what I mean. I was really happy when he texted me back right away. Nope. Call if you need to talk.
"Hi, Spence, where are you?"
"DC. We're in the Hoover building."
"Oh, sorry, you're working on a case."
The profiler gave a gentle laugh. "Yeah, but s'okay, Jimmy. We're sitting around waiting at the moment. Except for Rossi, he's getting up to speed. We're working on the NCIS abduction in case you're wondering. Fornell brought us in, since everyone feels like this is connected to Eli David rather than the case that the abductors are claiming."
I admit that the news that Spence and his team were on the job was comforting. I know that David Rossi was something of a guru in hostage negotiation and had written books on the subject, so I guess he was going to try and negotiate with whoever it is that has Ducky and Abby. Although whoever it was that was claiming to have them was really just a puppet for the puppet master.
"That's good, right, Spence?"
"Yeah, Jimmy, he's the best and we're trying to profile the abductors, trying to figure out where they're holding your friends."
Jimmy felt relieved. He knew that Spencer had practically pioneered the geographical profile in order to help locate hostages. It seemed that Fornell was really throwing every resource at this debacle, and the FBI's BAU really was the best.
"Thanks, Spence, that good to know."
"So, how are you coping, Jimmy?" Spencer asked sympathetically. "I know you're close to Dr. Mallard and Dr. Sciuto."
"Guilty. I was supposed to go bowling with Abby tonight, but I was called in to work."
"Don't go there, Jimmy."
"But I might have been able to save her."
"Or you might have gotten killed or the nuns injured. You might have ended up a hostage as well."
"My head knows you're right, Spence, but I still feel really guilty."
"Maybe when you get off work you might go and spend some time with Abby's nuns. I guess they must be feeling pretty guilty too since they were with her when it happened, but I'm sure you don't blame them."
"Of course not. They're not trained agents, it's not their fault." He paused. "Ah, Spence! Nobody likes a smartass. But thanks, Dr. Reid.
"No problem, Dr. Palmer. I'll let you know if we hear anything."
"Um, Spence, do you think Tony will show up?"
"Based on my profile, I'd say definitely. If he knows what's going on and he's physically capable of travelling, he will. A guy that dives into toxic water to save a colleague and a victim after shooting their attackers when he knows he's got crappy lungs, wouldn't allow his friends to be held captive if he could free them."
"Yeah, that's what I think too. If he comes, please don't let him do anything stupid like dying. I…"
Dr. Palmer to the ER STAT!
"I'm being paged, Spence. I gotta go. Keep me in the loop."
"You bet, Jimmy."
As I hurried towards the ER, pleased at the prospect of something to keep me busy, two things occurred to me; Sister Rosita and the other nuns must be beside themselves, and misery loves company. While I feel more than a tad awkward around Sciuto's nuns since I was brought up Episcopalian, we could end up comforting each other and I could at least help keep them in the loop.
Tel Aviv, Israel:
The man who'd flown into Israel on a passport declaring his identity to be Daniel Paddington, and who the Israelis now knew to be Anthony Daniel Paddington DiNozzo, had been sitting quietly in a conference room and he was really grateful that it was a conference room not unlike the ones at NCIS – well except for the fact that it wasn't orange with ultramarine blue feature walls. Although he thought the beige was a bit blah and could do with some personal touches, Tony found it much more calming on the nerves. He'd expected to be taken to the interrogation room where he and Eli had had such a productive 'chat' or even concrete bunker, no doubt used for no hold barred torture that Eli had eluded to with a feral sneer.
Apart from feeling grateful he mostly felt numb, hopeless, and beyond exhausted. He'd expected to die this afternoon, it was supposed to fix everything, and yet it hadn't gone to plan. Nothing had been resolved – there was even more uncertainty than before. Basically, everything was even more of a mess, and he had run out of options.
Tony knew perfectly well he'd been under constant surveillance today in the Akko marketplace. It was an unmistakeable tingling feeling between his shoulder blades, and the hair on his neck stood on end. Being the veteran of many undercover missions, Tony was well acquainted with what it felt like to be watched. Not that he expected anything less – Eli was the director of Mossad and he was bound to have a lot of enemies, notwithstanding Tony. It made sense that he would be heavily guarded, which was why Tony had used his natural flirting abilities to throw the Israeli security forces off the scent.
He really needed to confront Eli some place where no one else would be hurt or in danger. He didn't want to go to his death with anymore lives on his head, yet it was also imperative that the Mossad director know that Tony was dead or he wouldn't call off the search for him. Everyone back home would still be in danger, which was the whole point of sacrificing himself, since he'd only get one shot so to speak.
Tony couldn't believe the ease in which he'd managed to separate Eli off from everybody else at the gardens, including his bodyguards. It didn't make sense, unless David was making it easy for him because the bastard thought he was springing his own trap. People like David always interpreted other people's behaviour through the lens of their own moral, ethical, and when applicable, religious values. Ziva's father was an assassin and bent on revenge, plus he had no moral issues in getting rid of his rivals, so it seemed reasonable to assume that if David had somehow managed to twig to his presence, Eli would immediately assume that Tony had come to Israel to murder him. And being the cold-blooded predator that he was, the director would seize the opportunity to take him out.
So, Tony wasn't fazed when he easily managed to herd Eli up against the gates of the garden. He expected him to pull a gun, or if he was like his daughter, a trusty, silent but deadly knife, but instead he saw fear in his eyes. And that lack of action had made Tony furious and he started ranting at him, hoping to goad the man into killing him, since part of his plan for the downfall of the SOB was getting footage of Eli killing him. The miniature camera and transmitter he was wearing were supposed to ensure that the psychopath's career was toast, but the coward refused to do what he needed him to do. Even when he started hitting below the belt in speaking about Ziva's little sister, Tali David – asking where she would have been sent as a soldier of Eli if she'd survived. It was seeing the look of shock and horror on Eli's face that the truth finally hit him, despite the red haze of fury that enveloped him.
This wasn't Eli David – this wasn't the man whose patience or disgust at him was barely masked during that interrogation three years ago. Not the guy who'd lost his temper when Tony had turned up the obnoxious taunting and then been trapped into saying things he'd had no intention of revealing. Which meant that this was a double, not the real Eli David, and even as he was expecting to be shot down by the protection detail, Tony's eidetic brain quickly pulled up the movie "Dave" starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver about a doppelganger who impersonates the US President when he suffers from a debilitating stroke, leaving him all but brain dead.
Yet it wasn't Hollywood that had invented the political decoy, it had been used at least as far back as World War II on both sides, with Hitler, Himmler and Stalin all reportedly having doppelgangers - sometimes multiple doubles. And then there was General Bernard Montgomery aka Monty who managed to confused the Germans with his two decoys, one coached by the English actor David Niven, to fill in for the general and hide his real itineraries and Allied Invasion plans. Plus, every two bit tin-pot dictator, tyrant or despot worth their salt employed decoys. Yep, when you thought about it, of course Eli David would have a doppelganger.
The question was - where the hell was he now and why did he have to choose this moment to slip in an imposter? And that was when Tony lost it and started to puke, knowing that he had gambled everything and lost.
When the security detail, who Tony was honestly shocked hadn't shot him, came to arrest him, he was under no illusions that he lost his one chance to fix this and bring down Eli. Once they searched him they would find his camera. And for all he knew, they were fully aware that this person masquerading as Eli David, Director of Mossad was an imposter, had cooperated for security reasons. At least his camera would transmit back to his contact that Eli had a double.
It was information that might prove useful to know in the future, which was why he confronted the Eli look-alike, demanding to know who he was. And the momentary panic was plain to see, although he regained composure pretty damned fast. Either an undercover specialist or perhaps he was an actor, but he was good. He'd had no idea until it had finally hit him that Eli didn't recognise him. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to contain his anger. Ergo, that wasn't Director Eli David!
Tony had been enraged earlier when he discovered that David had duped everyone and he'd gambled everything and lost. But that manic fury had burnt out fairly rapidly and left him feeling apathetic and with a terrible lassitude. David had slipped out of the country and now he was threatening people Tony considered family while he was here in the custody of Mossad and unable to get to DC to give himself up.
Mossad was not convinced that the abduction of Abby and Ducky was the work of Eli David, or else they were and just playing their cards close to their chest. Frankly, after having Ziva on the team and dealing with them for four years, that possibility was highly probable. They almost certainly saw no reason to read him in, and considering the fact that back in the day, even his own boss often saw fit not to read him in, Tony decided that wasn't such a shocking revelation.
They'd arrived back in Tel Aviv and come directly to Mossad HQ and he was expecting to be interrogated at best, disappeared at worst, and while he had been prepared to die when he thought it would end this vendetta, he knew now that Eli David was in the US and his death wouldn't achieve what he had hoped. Just as he'd always feared, the bastard had figured out the best way to track him down was to use his friends against him. He cursed himself for not settling this a long time ago; this was his fault for being too stubborn and not wanting to let Eli David win. Now Abby and Ducky were paying the price for his wilfulness.
Somehow, he needed to convince this Elbaz that there weren't others behind the plot, that it was all Eli and that he wouldn't hesitate to kill Donald Mallard and Abigail Sciuto if it suited his agenda. He had to convince them to let him leave so he could surrender himself to the kidnappers in order save his friends. Although technically, neither were kids to be napped, even if Abbs wore pigtails, knee highs and short little skirts. There weren't too many women her age that could pull off that look, and even if she wasn't a brilliant scientist and a dear friend, just for her ability to meld Goth with little girl and make it work for her, they couldn't afford to lose her. Equally, Ducky was a gem surrounded by gaudy faux stones, able to tell the most outrageous stories without sounding like a compulsive liar. He could sometimes tame the savage Gibbsian beast, all whilst retaining his own sense of sartorial elegance with his suspenders and bow ties. They certainly broke the mould when they made him, that's for sure.
Each of his friends was unique and brilliant, and the world would be a much darker place without them in it. And he was a professional and knew the danger they were in, that Eli David was a ruthless monster – he didn't deserve to be referred to as a human. A contemptible collection of DNA who would view the NCIS scientists as expendable, especially once he'd gained his objective. Perhaps he could still take him down with him, as long as he had help, and also save the two people who had befriended him when he'd first joined the agency.
He'd plead his case to Orli Elbaz to be permitted to return to the US. Tony might be numb and exhausted, but he'd still picked up on feelings of animosity from the associate deputy director towards Eli David. Hopefully, he could take advantage of them to convince her to help him rescue his friends.
An Eye for an Eye
Leon Vance looked across at the man who'd saved his life on his first NIS mission to Amsterdam so many years ago when he'd been like a newborn lamb set loose amongst a pack of ravenous wolves. When a young but highly savvy Mossad officer had, for some unfathomable reason, decided to befriend him and become his protector, he'd first been suspicious. The simple truth was he would have returned Stateside in a body bag inside a pine box if Eli David hadn't taken pity on him that day so long ago and taken him under his wing.
Vance would always owe him for that, and yet he couldn't adequately explain the scope of his debt to Jackie, who was really, really pissed off with him. So furious, in fact, that she was threatening to divorce him if he didn't find a way to rid Eli from their lives once and for all. And Leon knew that her threat to go for full custody of their children was no idle one, either. You messed with his wife at your own peril, since she could be one scary lady, especially when the kids were threatened.
So, thanks to Jacky's ultimatum and Eli's life debt, he was in between a rock and a hard place, with no idea how to extricate himself from the tricky situation in which he found himself, so he resorted to drastic measures. He did what any highly intelligent, disgraced former director of a federal law enforcement agency would do in his shoes. He drank! At least if he achieved nothing else, he could get shitfaced drunk and blot it all out for a while.
They started on his 1945 vintage Port wine after dinner; he'd purchase half a dozen cases of it when he'd first become director – him and Eli. Back when his name wasn't Mudd and he had dreams of making it all the way to the top so he splashed out on the wine. He'd proven that intelligence and tech savvy was more important than the so-called intuition, investigative skills or being a cop. When he'd been coerced into becoming an NIS agent back in the day, he had none of those cop skills that were so damned revered as being important and guys like Gibbs and DiNozzo continually flaunted in his face. But what he had in spades, along with his big brain and brilliance with computers, was a fierce drive and ambition to succeed and to reach the top. Neither Gibbs nor his protégé had that. They were prepared to wallow around in the mud marking time with the murderers and rapists while Leon's eyes had always been firmly sited upon the winning post.
The directorship of NCIS had always been a stepping stone for him, just as Phillip Davenport, the former Secretary of the Navy, had viewed his own appointment as the first step to much higher office. Both of them would have made it, Leon was damned sure, if a dumb senior field agent who refused to follow simple orders hadn't persisted in investigating things that were best left buried. Despite Leon closing the case on the ICE agent who'd been killed, DiNozzo, damn him to everlasting hell, wouldn't let it go. That, unfortunately, resulted in that ill-fated trip to Ziva David's apartment, where most disturbingly he'd killed Officer Michael Rivkin while attempting to arrest him.
Tragically, the idiot was just too damned stupid to realise that Leon needed the Israelis, and specifically Eli, to bring down the mole in NCIS who was destabilising his position as director of NCIS. Eli had agreed to help him lay a trap and catch the traitor, and if he had to look the other way when Rivkin took out a terrorist cell, which inadvertently caused the collateral death of a federal agent, then that was a sacrifice that just needed to be endured. By all accounts, ICE Agent Sherman wasn't a particularly competent agent anyway, so it was doubtful that he was much of a loss.
So, as he grew increasingly maudlin and resentful, he and Eli got pretty smashed, first on Croft 1945 Vintage Port before they switched to cognac and Cubans. As they reminisced about the operation that they'd worked together in the early years of their career, they sipped their way through his 35-year-old Ragnaud- Sabourin Domaine La Voute Grande Champagne. He savoured the complex aromas of vanilla bean, flint, aromatic orange marmalade and brown spices before tasting first the caramel and the peppery qualities. Finally, his palate greeted the heady taste of woody dried apples, toffee and white pepper – so damned good! Although in his inebriated state, Leon was far too drunk to truly appreciate all the complexity of the brandy, of which he often enjoyed a snifter late at night, as he contemplated where it had all gone wrong. Where everything came crashing down on top of him, leaving him with nothing.
It was pretty late when Leon finally realised that Eli was too drunk to go back to his hotel, so he'd offered him a bed for the night. He knew that Jackie would be livid when she found out, but what else could he do? He couldn't let Eli, who was falling down drunk, go back to the hotel in a cab on his own, and Leon was too smashed to escort him. Therefore, there was no other choice but to make him stay the night, and perhaps in the morning he would find the courage to tell Eli that he had to make a choice between him and his family.
Maybe Eli would absolve him of his debt if he knew his dilemma. Yeah, right, and Mossad Directors wore pink fluffy bunny slippers and flannel nightgowns at night. Staggering around like a deranged pair of contestants in a three-legged race, Leon and Eli attempted to help each other up the stairs to bed.
An Eye for an Eye
0500 Saturday 15th August 2012 Hoover Building DC
"Okay, people. What have we got?" Fornell looked around the conference table at the diverse group of people assembled. There were Fornell's team, several members of the BAU and the MCRT from NCIS. They also had Gibbs, a former NCIS agent, and his former junior agent Timothy McGee, now a CIA Information Analyst, who'd begged to be allowed to take part in the briefing.
The senior special agent looked around at the group and found a dour bunch of agents, all looking like they hoped he wouldn't single them out. They were tired, frustrated and their nerves on edge from way too much bad coffee.
Sighing wearily, Tobias looked across at his former probie and now the junior agent on his team, nodding at Bridie Reilly, who shrugged and obediently got started. "Okay, well, there hasn't been a lot of progress since our last briefing. As you're all probably aware by now, the local DC news and ZNN started running the story after it was leaked on the internet. We've been analysing the footage, but other than determining that the hostages are being held in a warehouse somewhere, we haven't made much headway yet. We do have one piece of evidence since the last briefing. It was dropped off with another video of the hostages and the note was signed James Wilkerson and demands to speak to the agent who killed his brother, Callum."
Agent Balboa stood up to speak. "So, I think that we've tracked down the particular NCIS case that he's referring to." He looked across at Gibbs. "It was one handled by the MCRT in 2002. Took a while to run it down because James Wilkerson is only a half- brother and has a different father and last name. He also seems to have disappeared from sight for the last decade or more. Anyway, the brother's name was Callum Granger, a Chief Petty Officer who was in Requisitions and decided to use the Norfolk Base to start up his own requisitions business supplying drugs and child prostitution. He trapped underage girls and boys by befriending them and getting them hooked on his products, forcing the victims into prostitution to pay for their habits."
Gibbs frowned as he took over the briefing. "It was when Tony and I worked alone. He went undercover as an addict, befriended CPO Granger and saw him abducting the 13-year-old daughter of Lieutenant Mario and Carina Lopez. That was how we caught the case in the first place. There was an abnormally high number of service personnel on the base reporting their adolescent children as going missing with no explanation. When Tony checked with the Norfolk PD, they found a similar trend.
"You expect statistically that one or two were runaways because of potential abuse issues and a few maybe because of arguments with parents, and Navy and Marine brats have it tougher than your average kids, so you'd expect more cases of conflict between parents and teens, but not 10 kids from the base and 13 from off the base in six months. And Granger was clever about befriending them, deliberately picking out the rebellious or alienated teens.
"Profilers felt that by picking kids that parents would think had run off because of discipline issues, there was less chance of them being reported missing. Unfortunately, by the time we caught on what he was up to, we'd lost a couple of kids. One girl overdosed and a boy got hold of a gun and shot himself. So, Granger went looking for replacements and found Marisol Lopez, who was arguing with her parents at the time about her seeing a boy. He made friends with Granger. When DiNozzo saw the dirtbag trying to force her into a car, he went to arrest him, but he grabbed the girl, using her as a shield to get away. When he had a chance, DiNozzo shot him twice in the head."
Gibbs noticed everybody was agape. "What?"
Fornell gave a wry grin. "Hello, functional mute! Not used to you speaking so much. More than you've said for years."
He scowled. "I can talk, just don't wanna."
Balboa picked up the slack, referring to the MCRT report. "That's when James Wilkerson started making his presence felt, although at first we didn't connect the two cases. He started lighting fires, mostly in derelict buildings, so the arson squad dealt with him. Then there were a couple of fires around the Navy Yard, and then someone set our car on fire at a crime scene, and that got the attention of NCIS. Finally he got sloppy and we IDed him, but NCIS and the cops still didn't make the connection to CPO Granger.
"It wasn't until he abducted the kids from the prostitution ring and held them hostage and threatening to leave them in a burning building it twigged. He demanded Special Agent DiNozzo surrender himself in return for the lives of the adolescents…"
McGee interrupted, "And so now he's back and using the same modus operandi as before."
Profilers Dave Rossi and Dr. Spencer Reid from the BAU looked dubious. "Let's not jump to conclusions just yet. There's an awfully long time lag in between the abductions," Rossi cautioned.
Spencer looked at Fornell. "I agree with Dave. We need to figure out why he's waited for so long to try to get hold of DiNozzo again and where he's been in the interim before we can be confident we're dealing with the same individual. We could easily be looking at a copycat."
McGee, who still kept up a platonic friendship with his former lover of many years ago, frowned. He didn't want to hear any theories that got in the way of them finding Abby, he just wanted to do something instead of sitting on his ass and waiting. So, after getting fobbed of by Fornell's team again, he'd come barging into the Hoover building, demanding in on the taskforce. "I can build a program to look for warehouses that have identical conditions to the one that he used with the kids. He's obviously repeating the same scenario again."
The granite-faced head of the BAU, Aaron Hotchner, shook his head. "No, the unsub isn't repeating the last abduction – he's departed from the MO. He's taken two adult hostages, and that's a significant deviation in the victimology. Which begs the question, is this the hand of Wilkerson, and if so, why the change in tactics. Gibbs, how did the siege end?"
Gibbs frowned in concentration. "DiNozzo was told to come alone – usual crap, and Tony insisted if we went in with a large back up, Wilkerson might find out and kill the kids. So, I was his only back up, and I was going to use my sniper rifle from a distance to lessen the chances of him seeing me. We thought I'd have more time, that he'd taunt DiNozzo – maybe rough him up a bit, but the dirtbag shot him the moment he got within firing range. So, I didn't get enough time to take the kill shot. He went down, but it wasn't clean shot, and by the time I reached the scene he'd gone. The kids were so hysterical they didn't see him leave the warehouse."
Balboa looked at him oddly. "Your report states that DiNozzo was wearing a Kevlar vest and copped a GSW underneath the vest, but it wasn't life threatening. You went outside to call the EMTs and NCIS for backup, which was when you saw a blood trail that you tracked. It led to the dock and ended abruptly. You concluded he either fell into the river or he had a boat waiting and he escaped."
Gibbs nodded. That sounded right, but he honestly didn't remember that bit. Ever since getting blown up in 2005 and losing his memory – even after he regained it again, there were holes that had never returned. Obviously this was one of them, but he wasn't about to admit that to anyone. "Yeah, no trace was found of him."
Fornell was troubled. Looking at his junior agent he clarified. "You said that there have been no sightings of him or evidence that he was alive since then?"
Bridie nodded. "No, nothing, his bank accounts remained untouched, no activity on his credit cards, and his family had him declared dead after seven years. It's possible that he escaped and fled the country, or he could have escaped and then succumbed to his injury at a later point."
Fornell looked at McGee. "Okay, Tim, if you want to contribute, start checking death records and hospital admissions for John Does presenting with a GSW. Chest?" he double checked with Gibbs and received a nod of affirmation.
He could see that the profilers still had things they wanted to discuss – the note and the victimology being two obvious points to focus on, but he could see his 2IC Ethan Myers had something he was dying to bring up.
"You have something for us, Myers?"
"Well, not evidence, Sir, but how are we going to get in touch with DiNozzo? We need him so we can negotiate with the perp, but we haven't found him in the last three years. How the hell are we supposed to get in touch with him now?"
"I've already attempted to contact DiNotzo using the one avenue that he left for use in extreme emergencies. Plus, with ZNN covering the story, we're just going to have to hope he sees my message and responds or sees the perp's and comes in from the cold. We're gonna have to buy time to give him a chance to respond."
"And that's where I come in, Myers," Rossi said. "As the hostage negotiator, it's my job to convince the unsub that we need time to find him."
"But we can't find him," Myers objected.
"Yes, but it's my task to persuade him that we can and that it will take time. And that will buy DiNozzo time to learn about it and get here or for our joint taskforce to figure out where the hostages are being held."
Reid held up a hand. "I think we need to discuss the note left by the unsub. We used handwriting analysis and also carried out a statement analysis on the content. We found several anomalies that call into question that it was written by James Wilkerson. First of all, according to his family, Wilkerson is left handed, but our handwriting expert is extremely confident that the writer of the note wrote it using their right hand. As for the statement content, that is a bit more complicated." He flicked a remote control and displayed the note on the plasma screen on the wall.
XXXX
Gibbs stepped outside of the FBI conference room to answer his phone. Glancing at the screen he noted it was the landline from his home in Alexandria.
"Gibbs."
"Jethro, its Jackie Vance. Has there been any progress?"
"No, not exactly. Everything okay there?"
"The kids are still sleeping. I'm drinking coffee because I can't sleep. I really liked Drs. Sciuto and Mallard, they were impressive individuals, I really hope they're okay."
"We'll find them, Jackie. Get some rest – I'll call when we find them."
"Wait, Gibbs! I forgot to tell you that just after you left tonight, someone called from the State Department wanting to talk to you urgently."
"Okay, thanks. Call if you need something."
Closing his phone, Jethro briefly considered the State Department before dismissing it. They called every few months demanding to know if he'd located DiNozzo. Seems that they still hadn't gotten over him disappearing and managing to stay off the grid for more than three years. He didn't know what they intended to do if he turned up.
Shrugging, he thought about returning to the briefing, but instead he decided to put out feelers with some of his black ops contacts to see if they'd consider taking out Eli David. Since several of them owed him favours, he decided now was a good time as any to call in his markers and hopefully get David out of everyone's hair once and for all.
An Eye for an Eye
Ducky stared sorrowfully at the contorted face of Abigail Sciuto since it was blatantly obvious that she was in a lot of discomfort. If she was experiencing anything like what he was then she was probably suffering painful muscular cramping; however, unlike him, he was fairly certain she was also undergoing significant caffeine withdrawal. He was basing his supposition on her average consumption of caffeine loaded Caf-Pows per day, plus her degree of irritability. Although Ducky had long disapproved of the amount of caffeine she, and indeed Jethro, consumed on a regular basis, he was also an empathetic soul. He could imagine how thoroughly miserable she was feeling right about now.
They'd already spent an unpleasant night in the dark, which had increased their feelings of isolation. Both possessing a prodigious intellect, they were each fully aware that their chances of being released were slim to none but neither actually came out and said so because that would make it that much more real. Not, Ducky snorted, that being tied to a chair in some dark cavernous location wasn't real enough but still, as his mother was fond of telling him, where there's life there's hope. Abby had insisted early on after she regained consciousness that her Silver Fox would ride to the rescue and save them, just like he always did, that was if Honey Buns didn't beat him to it. When he looked befuddled since he wasn't sure to whom she was alluding, she pouted.
"You know… Skippy, the Silver Fox's wingman…his beta. Just you wait and see. He's coming to get us. They both are," she swore fiercely which made him think she might not be quite as optimistic about the outcome as she seemed.
Ducky realised that she had been referring to Anthony, although he didn't know why she called him Honey Buns. That was a new one on him although he did recall Gibbs calling him Skippy on occasion and he'd often wondered why. In point of fact he'd always intended to ask but somehow, Jethro had managed to cut him off before he'd gotten around to it.
Sighing loudly, the Goth waggled her well-shaped eyebrows. "Don't you wish Skippy were here now, Duckman? He'd probably be regaling us with movies that reminded him of being tied up and left in a warehouse." She giggled girlishly before going quiet. "You don't think that the dirt bags will leave us here tied up like that Vanessa chick that kidnapped Skippy and Gunnery Sergeant Atlas do you, Ducky?"
Before Ducky had a chance to soothe her fears, fears that they both knew were perfectly valid ones considering the degree of depravity they dealt with on a daily basis, she was chastising herself. Although initially he thought there was someone else participating in their conversation they proved to be alone.
"Stop being negative, of course he'll find us."
"Ya. Think. Abby! I don't leave my people behind, I'm a Marine. Sempre Fi!"
He soon realised that she was channelling Jethro and even though her husky contralto voice gave a good rendition of his inflections, language and delivery, Abigail lacked the deep, male timbre to be entirely successful at impersonating the man she looked up to with childlike devotion. Nevertheless, it had lightened the tension that had been increasing ever since they'd regained consciousness in this empty echo laden prison. Ducky realised while both of them were aware of the statistical fate for abductees, Abby's positive thinking strategy did make him feel calmer, more resolute. So he vowed to stay positive, for her sake.
Finally, they both dozed a little and he'd woken up to the dawning of a new day, which meant that they had been in captivity for approximately nine hours, give or take. In the light of day as he checked out their surroundings, he could tell that they were in some type of derelict workshop, one that had assorted pulleys, chains and also a hydraulic jack. Ducky decided that it had been a former garage or some type of engineering business at some point, since there were an assortment of wrenches, sockets and girly calendars scattered around the place. The tools looked old and a little rusty, so Ducky concluded that it probably hadn't been used for quite some time.
When he spied their captors approaching, he decided it was long overdue for them to be able to relieve themselves, so he had politely requested to the men wearing ski masks and latex rubber gloves that they be taken to the rest room. The medical examiner took some comfort from their jailors attempt to hide their identity and their grudging agreement to allow them to relieve themselves. Abby's bladder must be quite distended from the Caf-Pows she consumed; he didn't know how she did it. They were released from the chairs that they'd been tied to ever since they'd been brought here and it felt good to stretch their legs, even if the muscular cramping made it painful to walk. They were hustled to a small grimy bathroom, one at a time and Ducky took the opportunity to splash some cold water on his face as a pick-me-up. After their abductors returned them from the bathroom and resecured them to the chairs with new zip ties, they then disappeared out the large double roller doors, leaving them alone for the moment.
So Ducky in the spirit of thinking positive, decided that a good old fashion chat might help to pass the time and prevent them dwelling too much on their situation. It also might help Abigail take her mind off her caffeine withdrawal. So, they gossiped about Abby's nuns, her bowling and her work at a no kill animal shelter where she volunteered with her biological brother. Ducky was rather interested in all things canine. While the blasted pack of Victoria Mallard's corgis had long ago found a new home in rural Maryland where a devotee of the breed gave them a new home, Ducky recently found himself desiring a canine companion.
He actually liked dogs, just not the small, yappy variety. When he retired, it had been his long held intension to get a dog for companionship and as an exercise buddy, possibly a spaniel. He had visited a few breeders and whittled down his choices to an English Springer, Welsh Springer or Betony spaniel, but had yet to make a final selection.
So, several hours passed as they discussed the pros and cons of getting a puppy versus an older dog. According to Abby, there were plenty of juveniles that failed to make the grade in the show ring that were available from breeders, but most people wanted the cute little fluffy puppies, and the juveniles were harder to find homes for. What people failed to appreciate was that a juvenile was housetrained and lead trained, and if they were a show dog, was also well socialised to a wide variety of situations. Ducky agreed that a juvenile was probably a wiser choice for someone like him. At his stage of life, the thought of toilet training after years of his mother's corgi pack left him singularly unexcited.
Abby had been pretty up-beat, running off at the mouth and the ME was rather pleased his diversionary tactics had been so successful but after a lull in their conversation for a while, Abby, in a rare introspective mood, initiated a new topic of conversation. One that proved to be rather painful and awkward for them both, if not long overdue.
"Duckman?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Do you ever wonder if we could have seen this coming and maybe done something to stop it? And then you wouldn't be retiring and Jimmy would be the Assistant Medical Examiner instead of an ER doc…not there's anything wrong with that of course and my Silver Fox would still be leading the MCRT." She gulped, before resuming, "And Timmy wouldn't have crossed over to the dark side and Tony wouldn't have been forced to go on the run. We'd still be one big happy family."
"To what it are you referring, dear girl? This abduction, the business with Samuel Rivkin, the shameful affair with our Israeli assassin or the matter with her lover, Michael Rivkin?" Ducky asked the Goth scientist, since despite being something of a verbal rambler, admired clarity and scorned ambiguity. At his age, he was too old to beat around the bush, or for others to beat around it either.
"Well… all of the above, I guess, Ducky. We were a family. How'd it all get so out of hand?"
Ducky shook his head. "To answer your question… do I ponder about why this happened and if we could have prevented it? I would have to say an emphatic and most assured yes, my dear. Only every single day for the last three years."
"And did you reach any conclusions, Duckman? Oh most wise and venerable one."
"First, I would preface our discussion by returning to an earlier remark of yours about us being family. Tell me, my dear, growing up with your family in Louisiana, was it normal for you to gang up on one member of your family for years? Did you berate their intelligence and belittle their good character? Did you engage in brutal, bruising, cut-throat competitions to see who would be awarded the favoured child status which left the other siblings feeling undervalued and inferior? Or did your parents not play favourites but recognise, respect and love each of you for your unique individual qualities and not expect you to compete against each other?"
Ducky drew breath but continued on in his deliberately provocative and seditious remarks. "I wonder did your mother and father ever compare you and your brother to each other and tell him that he wasn't you or stick a training sticker on him to remind him he wasn't living up to the standards set by Abigail Sciuto? Did you ever refuse to listen to your mother and disobey her because she wasn't your father and he was your favourite hero so it was okay to ignore her and be disrespectful of her and make her feel impotent or a failure? Did you ever get angry with a family member because they were doing an important job that was difficult and dangerous, but couldn't reveal what it was? One which placed a heavy burden upon them, and when it inevitably ended up with them badly hurt emotionally, the rest of the family got angry and felt like they deserved it?"
"No, of course not, Ducky. I love them. My brother Luka is awesome, the bestest little bro ever, even if he ended up looking like a mini Kojak after I superglued his helmet to the ceiling…so cool. And my parents – I miss them every day, they were wonderful...the best. I'd give just about anything in the world to be able to see them again and spent time with them. So I would never treat my family like that, not ever."
"Well then, dear child, pray tell how can you possibly say our team was ever anything more than a group of workmates, and definitely not a family? Because that is exactly what happened on the MCRT. I've latterly realised with the woefully inadequate benefit of hindsight that it was a terribly toxic work environment. One which I feel was definitely a contributing factor in a lot of this tragic happenstance."
"I don't see how, Ducky," Abby protested peevishly.
"I'm not saying it is a simple algebraic equation where x + y = z. As students of science, we both know that it is rarely if ever the case when it comes to situations concerning human motivations and behaviour. Yet there are several immutable facts that we can agree upon which lead to our being able to analyse what has occurred." Ducky eyed his companion as she suffered a rather painful muscle cramp, wishing he could render her first aid.
Opting to keep her mind off her woes, Ducky resumed his discourse. "Tell me, Abby, would Ziva have ever tried to kill Gibbs if he'd been the one to kill Michael Rivkin, her Mossad paramour?"
"Well, of course she wouldn't, Ducky. That's just ludicrous, she'd have to be out of her mind, loony tunes crazy… which maybe some people would say that she was… I suppose. But she would never do that to Gibbs!"
"Ah, and why do you believe that?"
Abby looked at the ME as if he had two heads. "Because he's The Boss, Ducky! Why do you even need to ask?"
"Bear with me Abby. So… what difference does that make?"
"Because he could throw her off the team, plus she trusted Gibbs and he trusted her. He loved her like a daughter… well not as much as me. I was his favourite but he absolutely positively loved her like his own kid."
"Yet Tony was her boss too, Abby. And as misguided as it turned out to be, he also trusted her and loved her as a team member. So, why did she feel that she had the right to attack him?"
"Tony wasn't the boss, Ducky. I mean he's great and all but he's not Leroy Jethro Gibbs. He never will be Gibbs but I guess he's like a junior bossman which is a little bit hinky since he's already Anthony DiNozzo Junior, too but not the boss."
"Au contraire, mon amie. He was the senior field agent, not to mention her immediate superior. And yet she showed no respect for him, either as a person or for the position that he occupied. In fact, none of you did, and no one stepped up and did anything to change it. None of us, not one person in our whole agency, and that makes us all equally culpable."
Abby looked as if someone had stomped her hippo Bert and beaten the stuffing out of him. "You're saying we're to blame for what happened?"
'Yes, my dear, to a greater or lesser extent, with Ziva having the most liability in this abominable situation. But all of us must accept that our actions have had serious consequences, even Anthony. If he had reported the failure of the team to observe the chain of command instead of accepting your constant abuse and disrespect over the years, or if he had left the team then this wouldn't have happened to him. Of course, it is possible that whoever replaced him may have found themselves in a similar situation, but that is something that remains impossible to know with any degree of certainty."
Ducky considered his own guilt over all the head slaps, the jokes by the whole team at Tony's expense, his acts of bravery that remained unacknowledged or dismissed by his team mates. He recalled the obscene degree of competitiveness that Gibbs fomented for his own flawed psychological needs, Jethro's personality traits, not unlike those of evangelical leaders he'd met, and to his shame, his own failure to speak out about the wrongs he saw. He'd been an apologist, always there with a ready excuse to excuse bad behaviour and help them avoid being accountable. Then there was his lapse in not talking to Tony and offering advice to not accept all the abuse that his team dished out.
"Tony! You're blaming Tony for Ziva trying to kill him? That's just hinky, Duck. He didn't ask her to kill him… not that anyone would… well I guess hinkier things have happened but Tony wouldn't do that to us, he loves us. "
"Yes, perhaps, but I was merely illustrating that we all had a part to play. Me by not speaking out when I knew what was going on was not right, or even Anthony, by not stopping the team treating him like a pile of dog faeces. But you're right, he was the least equipped to deal with the seriousness of the team's transgressions. Especially when you kept calling the team a family."
"Wait… you're saying that this is my fault, Duckman," Abby quizzed, her tone incredulous. She seemed struck dumb at the thought.
"No, dear child, not just you, although you certainly didn't help with your slavish belief we were just one big happy family even if it was unintentional. You must realise it was Tony's greatest desire to be part of a real family, just like Pinocchio desperately wanted to be a real boy. Since his family was dysfunctional until he was eight and then it devolved into practically non-existence after his mother's death, it was always going to be something he desperately craved." He peered at her wretchedly.
"What you must understand is that essentially Anthony's knowledge of what constitutes family came from lonely hours of viewing of Ozzie and Harriet, and then when he went to Ohio State and joined his fraternity. Neither of these experiences is a terribly reliable source of information on how to survive or conduct human relationships. Yet it does explains why he was so willing to accept our word that the team was a family and also his reluctance to report the egregious abuse we perpetrated upon him since it was so important to him. Unlike the rest of the team, who while they may not have had a perfect family, well, apart from yours and Cate's, my dear, all of us knew what constitutes real family. And that certainly wasn't Team Gibbs," Ducky observed unhappily.
"Okay, so maybe he didn't have a good childhood, but you can't blame that on us," Abby objected, obviously feeling defensive when Ducky's observations hit home. "He's an experienced agent, after all."
"Ah, yes, he is that, and yet his experience constituted working with only one partner when he was a cop, and then when he first came to DC, he and Gibbs were partners. As his partner, he got the respect that was commensurate with someone of his rank and skills. Consequently, his attitude and demeanour was quite different to what it became after the team was created. When Cate and then Timothy and Ziva came along, Gibbs changed, you changed. You started treating Anthony as one of the junior agents with no more skill or experience than the probies; ridiculing him constantly, like jealous little children. And that just gave the newcomers a sense of entitlement and a conviction that it was fine to disrespect both Anthony and his position, to argue with him, to disobey his orders.
"You and Gibbs mocked and belittled him, and you both encouraged the junior agents, as well – it became a game, but a dangerous and cruel one at that. When the juniors came along, Abigail, you were too busy with the newcomers to spend any time with him – that dreadful team dinner is a classic example. When does family deliberately exclude another of their own and then throw it back in their face as a joke?
"That was bad." When Abby hung her head in remorse and thankfully didn't attempt to defend the indefensible, the pensive ME pursued the Goth, curious about something that had been troubling him for quite some time now.
"Tell me, Abby, as a self-proclaimed anti-violence advocate and a scientist, how did you manage to justify all those assaults that Gibbs inflicted upon the heads of the team? Did you tell yourself that it was alright because we were a family and he was disciplining recalcitrant children rather than autonomous professionals? How did you, the fierce empiricist, reconcile the cold hard evidence that repeated blows to the head are alarmingly injurious to cellular health and longevity? Particularly if you consider that Anthony was the recipient of the vast majority of them, and he also had the unfortunate knack of collecting concussions? I ponder how someone who has such reverence for the fragile, wondrous but ultimately delicate cells that make up the human brain and which you use to work your own forensic magic each day for a living, could countenance such a brutal assault?
"Is it because of your love for Gibbs and your blinding loyalty and juvenile hero-worship of the man, that you let yourself be convinced that his head slaps were acceptable behaviour? Would you have been prepared to make the same concessions to your strongly held principles if the head slaps had come from someone that you despised or disapproved of… say Agent Cummings instead of Leroy Jethro Gibbs? Please don't feel I'm singling you out by me posing these emotive questions, my dear, because I am merely curious since I have asked myself the self-same questions many times. I have boundless remorse that I didn't intercede when I knew it to be wrong, since as a forensic pathologist I should have more respect for the brain in all its magnificence. The simple truth is, I failed Anthony!"
Abby blanched at his diatribe, but still sought to rationalize it. "But Ducky, the Bossman only did it to help Tony focus. To make him a better agent because he's Gibbs. He's always right."
The diminutive Scotsman shook his head sorrowfully. "Oh… Abigail! I would describe your propensity to veer off into the tangential wastelands of the obscure and incomprehensible to be quite on par with myself and Anthony. We have similar thought processes, and yet Gibbs never head slapped either of us now, did he? And why not? It is because it would be deeply humiliating, against the law and utterly unacceptable in so many ways. He gave us both way more latitude, not to mention professional courtesy and respect to be ourselves. Besides, if Tony needed the physical abuse to perform his duties properly, explain to me, how was he able to function to such a high standard in Baltimore, or when he was undercover or when Gibbs retired to Mexico? You, as a scientist, must surely know that the so-called focus justification does not stand up to scrutiny."
"So, you're saying that if Gibbs didn't head slap Tony, we wouldn't be here now, Ducky?" Abby demanded mulishly.
"No, my dear Abby, not at all; as a scientist you know that would be a gross oversimplification since it was many things that led us to the catastrophe. Yet the fact remains that the disrespect for Anthony's position within the team was a factor that did contribute to the whole complex mess we find ourselves in. After all, how could Ziva, who did her compulsory military service where she was instilled with the immutability of the chain of command, ignore it at NCIS and think that she had the right to head slap a superior? She wasn't even a member of the agency. The MCRT had managed quite effectively to convince itself that the rules and regulations of the agency, and even the laws of the land, did not apply to them. If she felt she had Gibbs' blessing to strike the team's senior field agent - her direct superior, then it isn't such a leap for her to lie to him, or indeed to be insubordinate, and when she felt her own place was threatened, to kill him," Ducky held forth sorrowfully.
"That is why I say that we all must bear some responsibility for this turmoil, since we all knew better, and yet we went along with it anyway. This should not have occurred – it need not have occurred – yet it did, and we all have to accept responsibility for our actions, or our inactions as the case may be. The consequences of which we may yet be called upon to wear this day, young Abby."
It wasn't much, but speaking up for Anthony DiNozzo was the very least he could do fot the poor lad. If he went to meet his making today, then he wanted to have made amends, even just a little for his part in creating this whole horrible mess.
An Eye for an Eye
Orli Elbaz and Simon Rosen strode briskly into the conference room with a bunch of strangers Tony assumed were members of Mossad's upper echelons. The former agent witnessed the same sense of arrogance, even down to the way they walked, a trait he'd also observed in Ziva, Rivkin and Eli David. Even that vile CIA spook, Trent Kort had it, and Tony assumed it was the bearing of a trained assassin. His musing about body language and trained killers triggered another memory - his first trip to Israel when he'd deplaned from the C130 after being literally dragged there by his ear after he'd been forced to shoot Michael Rivkin. He remembered how Officer Hadar had insisted that Tony get into the SUV with the Mossad officers, all of them exuding that arrogance and in addition, an air of pure menace.
He also remembered that Vance and Gibbs hadn't even blinked at him being separated from the NCIS contingent. He was convinced that he would be disappeared when he'd been forced into the vehicle without anyone to watch his six. Ziva had already been muttering dire threats about what Mossad did to people that murdered one of their own. As he climbed into the SUV, he saw the exultant look on his Israeli partner's features and the malicious grin. It was at that moment that he had the life altering epiphany that he was completely on his own, that his own agency, if it had been politically expedient, would have had no compunction about leaving him here, despite him acting in self-defence and having been cleared of any wrong doing. Notwithstanding the fact that Rivkin had cut a swathe of espionage and death as he traversed the country, and failed to leave the USA when ordered to do so several times.
It was really apparent that justice, a cause for which he'd served his whole career, meant nothing when it interfered with politics. Minor matters of right and wrong were insignificant if it kept Eli David and his daughter happy, and he figured he'd probably be shot while 'attempting to escape' – that's if they bothered going to the trouble of explaining. There were plenty of places to arrange a permanent dirt nap and abundant volunteers to see him tucked in. Much easier that he simple disappear.
Over the years since Tony had been on the run, during moments of weakness when he allowed himself to remember his past, he'd pondered what would have happened if he'd refused to go to Israel after Rivkin's death. What if Leon Vance hadn't been so damned eager to bend over and let Eli screw him and the whole agency over? What if Gibbs had stuck to his freakin' rules for a change and stood up to SecNav and Vance? What if he'd stood up for himself for once and told them all to go do something anatomically impossible and retained legal counsel either through JAG or the private sector? Yeah, he had to admit, as likely a scenario as Gibbs explaining himself, but he could still wonder.
What if he'd had the support of Vance and Gibbs? Then perhaps Ziva and Eli would have backed off, because truth to tell, Mossad were the ones who were in the wrong for operating illegally on US soil. But it seemed that like Gibbs' rules, US laws could be broken with impunity and their citizens killed protecting high-placed government officials, and that was considered an acceptable outcome. There was an expectation amongst law enforcement personnel that they may have to sacrifice themselves in the course of their jobs, but there was an expectancy that if that occurred, then everything possible would be done to ensure that their killers received justice.
Would things have turned out differently if Gibbs hadn't let Ziva get away with being insubordinate to him? In fact, if the whole damned team had respected him, then things might have turned out very differently. Perhaps if he hadn't been so hell bent on covering everyone's asses, he might have tried covering his own for a change. It was one thing to have everyone's six when they were out in the field, but he'd carried it to a truly ridiculous level as SFA, mistakenly believing that the team cared as much for him as he did for them. He'd been a stupid idiot.
He never realised how truly deluded he'd been all those years working on the MCRT until he'd started working with Mike on the Elite Retrieval Services Team. Mike, Steve, Jack and Jonathon were a superlative team. They'd respected his skills and experience, even if he was the only one who had no Spec Ops training. Sure, they bantered – it was a natural defence when you were routinely placing yourself in danger, but no one ever tried to belittle him or make him feel stupid. In fact, they appreciated his different perspective and experience in law enforcement.
He'd never worked on a law enforcement team until he'd gone to work at NCIS, so he really had nothing to compare Gibbs, McGee, Cate and Ziva to until now. Before that, he'd always worked with a single partner, and that was a very different dynamic, but he'd put a lot of trust in Gibbs when he'd decided to work with him. He was his mentor, and when their partnership expanded to become a permanent team of agents, he assumed that Gibbs' team was the way it was supposed to be. He always sucked at relationships, so he just figured that the team dynamic was normal and they treated him like crap because of his flaws. So, being on Mike's team with four highly trained professionals was most definitely an eye opener. More importantly it begged the question, if Gibbs' team had operated upon the principles of mutual respect and observance of the chain of command, would Ziva's deceit and betrayal have been permitted to exist in the first place.
And that was the frustrating thing about playing the 'what if' game – there was no way on earth to truly know what might have been. Might Ziva still be alive, might he still be in DC and not hiding, might Ducky and Abby be home in their beds, might Gibbs and McGee still be on the MCRT?
As the Israelis took their seats and looked to the Associate Deputy Director to fire the opening salvo, Tony pushed his angst about his old team down, deep down with all his other emotional hurts. Now was not the time to be showing these people any vulnerability – at least not any more than he already had.
Orli stared at him intently. She was having a great deal of trouble reconciling this man with the long sandy blond hair and blue eyes (no doubt courtesy of coloured contact lens) with his photograph from his personnel file photograph which Officer David provided years ago that showed him as having shortish brunette hair colour and grey-green eyes. She'd heard he was a genius at undercover work and she could see why. Why he'd stayed one step ahead of Samuel Rivkin and Eli. Even knowing who he was, she still had trouble believing it was the same person.
"So, tell me, Mr. DiNozzo - why are you so convinced that the abduction of your former work mates is related to Director David?"
Tony gathered his thoughts, guessing he'd have just one shot at this. He needed to maintain a professional air and present his argument calmly and logically. Abbs and Ducky's lives depended on him. He took a deep breath and launched his argument.
"I guess you'd call it a gut feeling. It's served me well over the last three years to know when someone was getting too close for comfort." He diplomatically avoided mentioning Samuel Rivkin by name. "Plus, deduction. Ziva David had prepared personal dossiers on everyone on our team, and the director undoubtedly has those files. I'm sure she would have noted how protective I am of my friends and people I consider family. Dr. Abigail Sciuto and Dr. Donald Mallard are both as good as family to me. Since I have on several occasions put my own life in jeopardy to save others on the team, including Ziva David, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if they threaten my friends… if they abduct them, it will draw me out."
"And that is it?" Orli probed.
"No. I don't believe that the 'coincidence' of Eli David going off the grid in New York while setting you up to believe he was in the middle of a steamy affair in a seaside retreat is really a coincidence. I think that David is in Washington because he wants to trap me so he can kill me."
"I'll grant that the evidence is highly suggestive of such suppositions, but that still is not conclusive proof. And as unfortunate as this event may be, we cannot become involved unless we are sure that Eli is responsible. So, what else do you have?"
Tony sighed. Always hold back the big guns until the very end. "Okay… if the intel that the media has released in the last couple of hours can be believed, the person who abducted Abby and Ducky is related to a case I worked on a decade ago. The dirtbag's stated reason for the abduction is because he wants revenge for me shooting and killing his brother – seeing a theme emerge here, Associate Director?"
"Are you saying that you didn't shoot his half-brother, Lieutenant Granger, Mr. DiNozzo?" Simon Rosen queried, ignoring the awkward question posed by Tony.
"Oh, yeah, I shot him when he took a 13-year-old girl hostage."
"So, why are you dubious about Mr. Wilkerson being behind the abduction of your friends?" Orli pressed him. "As I understand it, he took hostages so that he could trap and kill you once before. Sounds like he's back and is repeating the MO again."
"Yes, it does, doesn't it? There's just one problem with this whole setup, Associate Director. James Wilkerson was shot during the rescue operation a decade ago."
"And according to our sources at the FBI, no body was ever found. The theory was that he had a boat waiting for him and that is how he escaped," Rosen interjected.
Tony nodded. "Your sources are correct, at least according to the reports filed at the time. However, I have additional information about what really happened to Wilkerson that isn't in the case file. There was no boat, at least that's what the witness recounted. He was seen crawling to the edge of the dock, falling in and disappearing under the water. He failed to resurface. That information on top of the amount of blood left at the crime scene, make it highly improbable that Wilkerson would have survived, unless someone pulled him out and he received medical attention. There were no reports of anyone matching Wilkerson's description seeking medical assistance then or in the days following the siege, and there were no bystanders to pull him to safety."
Orli frowned. "So, you are saying, Mr DiNozzo, that the man behind the hostage siege ten years ago is dead?"
"In all likelihood he is. The chances of him surviving, based upon the evidence, are astronomical."
"But there was no body recovered?"
"That is correct, but then there only a cursory search carried out to find him since it was believed that he escaped from the scene via a boat."
"And why was this witness testimony not in the report, Mr. DiNozzo?"
Tony shrugged. "Well, that is a question that would need to be directed to the investigating agents, Officer Rosen. I was injured and in the hospital and then on medical leave after being wounded, and I gave my account to the agents who investigated."
"So, your contention is that this is someone replicating the crime to make us think it is Wilkerson, but it cannot be because he is dead. That the abductor does not know the truth because the key information was omitted from the case report?"
Tony nodded solemnly. "Precisely. So, when you combine that information with what I outlined previously, I'm certain that Wilkerson didn't abduct Sciuto and Mallard. Eli David did."
As the unnamed individuals retreated to a corner of the room to comfer, Tony remembered how details of Wilkerson's probable death had come to light. Since he'd been wounded that night and the only way he was going to be leaving the warehouse after the rescue mission was via a gurney courtesy of the EMTs, he'd not been in a position to dispute the details, even if he'd been inclined. Still, it didn't mean that he'd ever been truly convinced about him getting away in a boat, since Gibbs had always been weird about it whenever he mentioned it to him. It was nearly a year later when Gibbs had been shot and had received pain meds postoperatively that the functional mute, who was high at the time, admitted to him what had really happened. He'd tracked him via the blood trail to the docks and he had crawled to the edge, and Gibbs had shot him as he was trying to get away.
Tony remembered a piece of advice Gibbs had once shared with McGee about if you wanted to shoot a dirtbag, do it while they were running away – don't wait til they've stopped. He guessed that Gibbs had followed his own sage advice since he was incensed that Wilkerson had taken all those vulnerable and damaged kids. Plus, he'd been pissed that Wilkerson had also shot Tony. But when he'd brought the subject up later when Gibbs had come down off his morphine high, his boss flat out denied shooting the bastard on the dock and walking away knowing he'd drown. So, Tony had let it lie, and no doubt Eli had found the file and decided it would fit neatly in his plans to trap Tony and claim vengeance once and for all, while at the same time throwing suspicion off him.
The Mossad delegation returned and resumed their seats. Orli looked serious. "Mr. DiNozzo, you have convinced us that Eli David in all probability is behind the kidnapping of your former work mates with the intention of forcing your surrender and death. So, now we need to decide how to proceed based upon this new intel. Let's open the floor to suggestions and options."
Tony smiled, and with his best puppy dog eyes, pled his case, as Abby and Ducky's lives depended on him. "I need to get back to DC ASAP to surrender myself in exchange for Sciuto and Mallard."
He knew that even if he surrendered himself that Ziva's father would have no compunction about killing Abby and Ducky, as well as himself, but he knew like when Wilkerson had the kids, that his surrender would be a distraction. One that would give others the chance to save his friends, but for it to work, he needed to be there too.