Okay, so I'm sure that by the time you reach the end of this chapter, a fair few of you will be thinking - 'Haven't I already read this before?' - Well the truth is, yes you have. When I was reading this story back to myself to check a few important points, I realised that the last chapter was way too long. I couldn't really digest everything that was happening, and I figured that it might be the same for you guys too. So I decided that I wanted to split the last chapter into two smaller ones. Beyond that however, very little has changed in terms of the content of this chapter in the story : )

Before we get into the chapter however, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone that has reviewed, followed, and favourited this story. The support that has been shown to this story is incredible, so thank you so much. I really appreciated all the support : )

Finally, please remember that NCIS is not owned by me.

I hope you enjoy this chapter : )

Kill Ari - Part 7

Kate was just walking back into the squad room when she saw Gibbs exiting from the Director's office and walking back down the stairs. Clearly he'd finished updating her on the situation involving Ducky and Ari during the time Kate had spent talking to Gerald and debriefing him. Soon enough, both agents were back in the bullpen with McGee and Abby.

"Any luck on tracking down Ducky's Morgan yet?" she asked hopefully.

"None" McGee reported, expression sour, "Nothing back on the BOLO yet either".

"I just hope to god that Ducky's okay" Abby said nervously.

"We'll find him Abs" Gibbs assured her, before turning his attention to Kate, "Did you debrief Gerald?"

"I did" Kate nodded in confirmation, holding up her notepad she'd used in the conference room, "I just need to type it all up into a written statement for him to sign".

"Well that can wait" Gibbs said, plucking the notepad out of her hands and tossing it down onto Kate's desk, "We need to get going".

"Okay" Kate said in confusion, "Where do we need to get going too?"

"We're going to do what I planned to do before our dearest new Director interrupted me" Gibbs growled darkly, glowering in the direction of the Director's office, "We're meeting up with Tony at the Embassy Hotel".

"Um, Tony's at the Embasero" Abby hastily chimed in.

"Then why did he say the Embassy?" Gibbs demanded to know as he steered Kate in the direction of the elevator.

"Cell phone garble" Abby shrugged at him.

"Like you said Gibbs, the storm's knocking out the cell reception" Kate added.

"All right, from now on everyone is using phonetics" Gibbs announced, rolling his eyes in annoyance, as he slammed the button to call the elevator, "Like we did in the Corps".

"Um... Golf-India-Bravo-Bravo-Sierra" Abby obeyed Gibbs' order but not in the way he had intended, making Kate smile slightly to herself in amusement, "Can I please go back to my lab? I'm flipping out up here with nothing to do".

Gibbs sighed, but considered her request. His gut told him that whilst he was holding Ducky hostage, it was unlikely that Ari would try firing into Abby's lab again.

"Okay, but don't leave..." he started to say.

"Don't leave the building" Abby finished for him, "I know. Bravo. Yankee. Echo".

The elevator door closed, and they started to descend.

"Oh, and we need to bring Tony a pizza" Gibbs suddenly remarked, making Kate look up at him in confusion.

"Why?" she asked in bewilderment.

"Said he was hungry, and after everything we've been through today... well, it won't kill us to be nice to each other for a bit" Gibbs shrugged.

Kate just stared at him in astonished bewilderment.

He still wasn't acting like himself, and Kate could just tell that until they found and took Ari down once and for all, Gibbs was going to keep acting like that. She sighed and hoped that the time they'd all been waiting for would come soon.

Gibbs being nice to his agents was really starting to freak her out.

Ziva couldn't help but smirk as she did yet another lap of the hotel pool. She knew that she shouldn't find it funny, but she just couldn't help it. If Special Agent DiNozzo honestly thought that he was being subtle in his tailing of her, then apparently NCIS didn't put nearly as much stealth training into its agents as she had previously thought.

She knew she was being followed, no doubt on Special Agent Gibbs' orders, from the moment she had left the Navy Yard. Tony no doubt figured that she was clueless, but she most certainly was not.

He wasn't exactly being subtle in his shameless ogling of her at the window right now either. And so Ziva gave him what he wanted. Something to watch. That was why she was still here, enjoying a relaxing swim and staying as far away from Ari as possible.

She would be damned if she was the one to allow Gibbs close enough to kill her brother.

Ziva heard footsteps echoing across the sleek hotel tiles, and looking up, she smirked as she saw one of her valuable allies, Dana, approaching, dressed in a tight-fitting red swimsuit and carrying a white bathrobe over one arm.

"Mind if I join you?" Dana asked, pretending they didn't know each other as per their predetermined plan.

"One more lap and you'll have it all to yourself" Ziva smiled at her, eyes betraying without words just how grateful she was for Dana doing what she was doing for Ziva and Ari.

"How's the water?" Dana asked for appearances' sake.

"Lovely" Ziva replied as she swam to the edge of the pool and carefully climbed out of the pool, whilst on the other side, Dana hung her bathrobe on a peg on the wall, right next to the one Ziva had hung up there earlier, "Have a nice swim".

"Thank you" Dana smiled as she lowered herself into the pleasant water, starting to do some laps of her own.

Ziva walked over to the wall and removed one of the robes. To an ordinary civilian, nobody would have noticed that anything was amiss. To a highly trained federal agent, whose job it was to notice things, however, they would know immediately what had just happened.

The robes had been switched.

Ziva exited the room with a carefully expressionless face whilst inside she was just praying that Dana would be able to successfully make the drop for Ari. He'd need her to if he stood any chance of escaping this country with his life.

It was only once Ziva was out of the way and back in the locker room, and Dana was preoccupied by her swim-session, did the highly trained federal agent who had twigged exactly what had just occurred spring into action.

Tony silently slipped into the room whilst cautiously making his way to the far wall as quickly and as quietly as he could, knowing he couldn't let this opportunity go to waste.

Thankfully he managed to make it over to the hanging bathrobe without attracting Dana's attention, and so he took off his leather jacket and hung it on the peg next to the robe, before he began riffling through said robes' pockets.

His eyes widened as he pulled out a passport, and flipping it open, his heart leapt up into his throat at seeing Ari Haswari's photograph there as plain as the nose on his face. Tony's eyes drifted towards the name on the documentation. René Saurel. Clearly a forgery then to get Ari out of the country unnoticed. Well Tony would be damned if he let that happen.

Nobody tried to murder his partner and got away with it.

Tony would see Ari Haswari dead, and nobody would be able to prevent it.

"Hey!" an abrupt shout pulled Tony out of the dark thoughts his mind had drifted off into. Hastily stuffing the passport back into the pocket of the bathrobe, he whirled on the spot to see the woman in the pool staring at him suspiciously, "What are you doing?"

"Going for a swim" Tony replied like it was obvious.

He quickly removed his over-shirt before his hands went to the buckle of his belt. He began to undo it and Dana arched an eyebrow at him.

"There's a locker room" she pointed out to him.

"No, I'm fine" Tony smirked, undoing his belt and sliding down his jeans, before removing his t-shirt. Soon enough, he was stood there in just his boxers, grinning like an idiot.

"Where's your swimsuit?" Dana questioned him.

"Don't have one" Tony grinned at her charmingly. Instead of being charmed however, Dana just rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose in disdain.

"I should call security" she told him, shaking her head in disapproval.

"You obviously didn't see the sign" Tony playfully frowned at her.

"What sign?" Dana asked sceptically as she got out of the pool and approached Tony. Stepping around him, Dana reached for the robe containing the passport, slipping it on and tying the belt to keep it in place.

"I must have been blocking it" Tony shrugged at her, "Uh... remember I was waiting outside and you wanted to come in?"

"I remember" Dana nodded.

"The Hackensack Nudist Society. From ten twenty seven until eleven fifty one the pool is ours. And it's our third annual convention" Tony wildly invented off the top of his head, whilst Dana smirked in amusement. Across from them on the other side of the swimming pool, an elderly couple entered the room, both wearing robes, and giving Tony some seriously funny looks, "Here's Agnes and Agnew right now. He's our President and Agnes is our social secretary. Hey guys. You look funny with clothes on".

The couple gawked at him in utter bewilderment.

Dana grinned, knowing the story was a load of bull, but still found the man before her to be funny. She thankfully however misinterpreted the reason behind Tony's bizarre behaviour.

"Inventive. Funny even" she smirked at him flirtatiously, "But I'm married".

And without looking back, Dana sidestepped Tony and headed towards the locker room to go get changed.

"So am I!" Tony called after her.

Once Tony was sure that Dana was gone and wasn't coming back, the federal agent quickly dropped his impression as the goofiest guy on the planet and hastily pulled his clothes back on, ignoring the couple across the pool still staring at him in astonishment.

He needed to let Gibbs know what he'd just learnt.

Without a backwards glance, Tony hightailed it out of the hotel.

Kate couldn't help but sigh in annoyance as the storm started up yet again. The heavens had opened once more, but thankfully the rain wasn't so bad yet that it obscured her view of the Embasero Hotel across the street. She and Gibbs were parked up on the opposite side of the road to the hotel, a pizza box in Kate's hands. Tony had asked for a pizza, so a pizza is what they had brought him. The two of them waited in comfortable silent, until after a few minutes, they saw Tony exit the hotel, his cell phone in hand.

Seconds later, Gibbs' phone began to ring.

"Gibbs" he answered gruffly.

"Boss, can you hear me?" Tony's voice immediately asked.

"Across the street" Gibbs replied.

Kate watched as across the road, Tony was peering through the heavy rain and around the darkened street for them.

"Flash the lights" Kate told her boss as a realisation hit her, "He can't see us".

Gibbs quickly did as Kate advised, flashing the car's headlights to get the other member of their team's attention. It worked, as Tony's immediately eyes locked on to them.

"Gotcha" Tony's voice said over the phone.

The call was abandoned and Gibbs and Kate watched as across the street, Tony pocketed his cell phone before he began hurrying in their direction. Moments later he was sliding into the back seat of the car behind Kate and out of the stormy night.

"Ziva slipped a phony French passport and some cash" Tony greeted them, before he started sniffing the air like a hungry dog, no doubt able to smell the pizza Kate was holding, "To the woman with the Star of David I told you about Boss".

He continued sniffing the air, so Kate held up the takeaway box for him to see. Tony locked eyes on it, his face lighting up with a huge grin that caused Kate to smile too, it was so infectious.

"I love you Kate" he beamed, reaching for the box.

"Ah ah!" Kate playfully pulled the box back, earning her a puppy-dog pout from Tony, "First you've gotta earn it".

Tony's lips pulled into a smirk.

"Okay, how do I do that?" he asked slowly, willing to play her game.

"How did you know that the passport was fake?" Kate wanted to know, wiggling the box as incentive.

"Ari's photo but not his name" Tony smirked at her, "Kind of a big giveaway, Katie".

He reached for the box again, but Kate still wasn't done playing just yet.

"Nope, that earned you the box, not the pizza" she gleefully informed him, making him pout again.

"Ah, just give him the damn thing Kate" Gibbs grunted, not in the mood for their typical nonsense right now.

"What name is Ari using?" Kate asked Tony instead of acknowledging her boss' words.

"Aren't you curious to know how I got it?" Tony retorted instead of answering her question.

"I assume you improvised, like a good agent should" Gibbs chimed in bluntly, quickly losing his already wafer-thin patience with the two of them now.

"But what an improv! I swear to God I could get a gig on SNL!" Tony cheered, drawing a small laugh out of Kate, "Okay, dig this you two. I pretend like I'm this really goofy guy trying to get-".

"Not really seeing the pretending part of that statement, Tony" Kate couldn't resist teasing him.

Tony found himself pouting at her once again.

"That hurt, Kate" he whined softly.

"What's the name?" Gibbs demanded to know, getting them back on track.

"René Saurel" Tony informed him - sensing the man's patience was done - whilst the senior agent made a note of the name in his notepad, "Spelt S-A-U-R-E-L".

"Description?" Gibbs continued his line of questioning.

"All I saw was the name and the photo" Tony shrugged at him.

"I think he was talking about the woman, Tony" Kate chimed in teasingly, "Shouldn't be too hard for you since I'm sure your eyes took in every little bit of her".

"Yes they did" Tony grinned like a Cheshire cat, and Kate rolled her eyes fondly, "She was about five foot nine, dark hair, blue and white jogging outfit. Big gym bag. Real pretty girl. Looked enough like Ziva to be her sister. Truly smoking".

"We're back to this again?" Kate scoffed in disbelief, "You really think Ziva was that hot?"

"Katie, we've been over this" Tony reminded her playfully.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it" Kate shook her head fondly, "The sun. No hotter. I remember".

"Good" Tony beamed at her, "Now, have I earned my pizza yet?"

Kate seemed to consider his words for a moment, before his big puppy-dog eyes made her relent. She handed over the pizza box to him, making him beam in delight.

"Thanks Katie!" he eagerly opened the box and began snuffing his face.

Kate smiled, before turning her attention back to the situation at hand. She looked over at Gibbs, who was staring out the window ahead of him thoughtfully.

"Everything okay Gibbs?" she asked, snapping him out of his reverie. He turned to look at her.

"Did you manage to get anywhere when looking into Ziva's background?" he asked instead of answering her question.

"No" Kate regretfully shook her head, "I got blocked every time I tried".

"What's on your mind, Boss?" Tony asked through a mouthful of delicious pizza.

"Must you talk with your mouth full like that?" Kate protested, wrinkling her nose in disdain.

Tony scowled at her, but otherwise ignored her words.

"Boss?" he prompted.

"Thinking about what you said before, DiNozzo" Gibbs sighed, sounding lethargic, "About that woman you saw being Ziva's sister".

"What makes you say that?" Kate wondered curiously.

"Mossad is like the Mafia, Kate. One big happy family" Gibbs informed her, before pulling out his cell phone and calling the only member of his field team not currently present, "Hey, McGee. I've got a passport alert. Ari is traveling with a French passport under an alias, René Saurel. Sierra. Alpha. Uniform. Romeo. Echo. Lima".

"Okay, what alert category?" McGee's voice asked him.

"Terrorism!" Gibbs barked into the phone before he hung up the call.

Kate smirked and raised her eyebrows.

"Well that's bound to get Custom's attention" Kate remarked drily.

"Let's make sure he doesn't get that far" Gibbs retorted gruffly.

"Boss, that's her" Tony exclaimed from behind them.

Kate and Gibbs both turned their attention back onto the Embasero Hotel in time to see a beautiful woman emerge. Kate could kind of see Tony's point. She definitely held a resemblance to the Mossad operative they had met earlier in the day.

"Stay with Ziva" Gibbs instructed Tony, before turning his attention to Kate, "Both of you".

She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at him.

"You sure?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Do I stutter or something, Kate?" he retorted bluntly, and Kate held up her hands in surrender.

"What if this girl's meeting Ari?" Tony wanted to know.

"He's right Gibbs" Kate nodded in agreement, "We talked about this. I wanna be there when Ari is brought down once and for all. Not to mention that you'll need some backup when facing down the bastard".

Gibbs gave them both a stern look.

"Let me rephrase the original instruction" he growled at his two agents, "Get out!"

Kate levelled him with a hard glare, but it quickly faded into a frown upon seeing the expression on Gibbs' face. She realized that he wasn't going to back down on this, so sighing in defeat, Kate got out of the car, instantly getting soaked by the rain again. Tony followed her out, still clutching the pizza.

"Thanks for the pizza, boss!" he grinned at Gibbs, who rolled his eyes.

"Thank Kate" he replied in amusement, "It was her that swiped it from the night shift".

"Nice" Tony beamed down at her proudly, making her smirk.

"I do what I can" she smiled back up at him.

"Call us if you need us Boss" Tony turned his attention back to Gibbs.

"And be careful" Kate pleaded with him as well.

"Read you loud and clear Kate" Gibbs nodded that he would be cautious.

Tony and Kate turned back to the Embasero Hotel in time to watch as across the street, Dana had flagged down a taxi cab and was getting into the back of it. Within seconds, the car right next to them started, and moments later Kate and Tony watched as Gibbs drove off in pursuit of the taxi. A forlorn sigh slipped past Kate's lips.

"Think he'll be okay?" she asked Tony anxiously.

"Gibbs?" Tony raised an eyebrow at her, "He's always okay".

Kate frowned, not really agreeing with him, but just hoping that this was one of the times when Tony was right. She honestly couldn't imagine a world without the whole team being together and complete. Kate had no idea what she'd do if one of them was ever lost to them forever.

And she didn't want to find out.

Gibbs was careful in his pursuit of the taxi cab that the mysterious woman that Tony had seen was travelling in. He was careful to avoid following the cab too closely, otherwise she'd probably twig that he was following her. Then she'd never lead him to Ari, and that just wouldn't do. Gibbs wasn't about to lose one of his precious few leads in tracking down that bastard so he could kill him once and for all. Not when Ducky's life might be depending on it.

And speaking of Ducky...

That was his vintage Morgan coming down the street.

Gibbs' eyes darkened with vengeful malice, as he turned the steering wheel abruptly, swerving the car into the path of the Morgan, forcing it to grind to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road.

Without wasting a single moment, Gibbs burst out of the agency car in whirl of furious energy, his weapon drawn and ready to put Ari Haswari down and do the whole world a favour.

"Ari!" Gibbs roared furiously, "Get out, Ari!"

The driver's door opened, and Gibbs fixed his grip on the trigger of his gun. Before he could fire and make a fatal mistake however, he closely regarded the person getting out of the car. To his utter astonishment, it wasn't Ari after all.

It was Ducky.

A surge of the utmost relief flooded Gibbs' system at seeing one of his closest friends alive and well when Gibbs and his team had all feared the worst. The feeling was quickly quenched however when Gibbs remembered that just because Ducky had been driving the car, that didn't necessarily mean that Ari wasn't still inside the Morgan.

"Good grief, Jethro" Ducky exclaimed, sounding annoyed as he slammed the driver's door shut, "Put that weapon down. I've had enough excitement for tonight".

Gibbs most certainly did not put his weapon down. Instead he stormed over to the Morgan, looking through the windows whilst keeping a tight grip on his gun. To his disappointment however, Ari was not in the car.

Damn it!

Where the hell was that bastard now?! When was this nightmare going to end?!

"Ari abducts me. Gerald strips my gears. And now you play chicken on a wet street" Ducky complained as Gibbs sighed, holstering his weapon before turning his attention back to his friend.

Satisfied that upon visual inspection, Ducky was just fine and sporting no injuries whatsoever, Gibbs opted to save any words of relief he might have to say, and instead got right down to the matter at hand.

"Where's Ari?" he demanded to know.

"Gone I imagine" Ducky shrugged, much to Gibbs' disappointment and annoyance, "We were parked about ... well, a ways back. He received a cell phone call and then told me to drive down the street for ten minutes".

Scowling darkly, Gibbs took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialled McGee's desk phone back at headquarters.

"McGee!" Gibbs barked in the cell phone before McGee had the chance to say even a single word, "Congress Cab number seventeen picked up a female fare at the Embasero Hotel ten minutes ago. If he's enroute, I need his twenty. If he's dropped his fare, then get me an address. And take the BOLO off Ducky's Morgan. He's safe".

Gibbs hung up the call before McGee had the chance to respond.

Pocketing his phone, he remembered that he still had Ducky's cell phone. Pulling it out of his pocket, he turned his attention back to Ducky, and saw that the M.E. was staring at him grimly, a thoughtful frown etched into his face. Gibbs held out Ducky's cell phone to him.

"Our paths didn't cross by accident" Ducky surmised knowingly, taking his phone and pocketing it.

"No, we didn't" Gibbs agreed, scowling furiously, "Ari's cell call came from that woman in that cab I was tailing".

Ducky's jaw clenched angrily.

"He sent me down this street so that you would run into me" the M.E. growled, furious to have been used like that. If there was one thing that Donald Mallard absolutely despised, it was being used.

"Yeah! I'm distracted be the Morgan, the cab keeps going. Picks him up. They're gone!" Gibbs shouted in fury.

"Ari abducted me just to get you off her tail" Ducky's eyes widened in realization.

"Maybe" Gibbs shrugged, not really caring about the reason behind Ari abducting Ducky, just outraged over the fact that he'd done it at all, "What did you talk about?"

Ducky shrugged nonchalantly.

"Well, my Morgan for a while. He was surprisingly knowledgeable" Ducky remarked in his usual manner, "Then Edinburgh Medical School. Yeah, we were both alumni. A few decades apart of course but..."

"Anything important, Ducky?" Gibbs cut him off before he got too far down that road.

Ducky levelled him was steely expression.

"Ari swore that it wasn't him that tried to kill Caitlin earlier today" Ducky informed him, causing Gibbs' blood to boil. He knew it that the sniper was Ari, no matter how many lies the bastard told, "He made a very logical and passionate defence".

Gibbs' felt his heart sink a little bit.

First Director Morrow, then Jenny, then Tony and now Ducky as well. Why was everyone having such a hard time believing that Ari was the one behind all of this?

No. Not everyone.

Kate was still firmly in his corner, and for that Gibbs would be forever grateful. If he was going to take that bastard down once and for all, then he needed at least one person still firmly in his corner. But then that was Kate in a nutshell. Loyal almost to a fault.

"You believe him?" Gibbs wanted to be sure.

"He was very persuasive" Ducky said reasonably, despite knowing how much he knew his friend didn't want to hear it, "He also said he knows that neither you nor Caitlin will ever believe him. He almost seemed quite saddened by her belief that he's a terrorist".

"He's a slick bastard, Duck!" Gibbs growled angrily, "But he's right. I don't believe him. I know he was that sniper and I know he's the one that almost took Kate's life".

Ducky sighed, sensing Gibbs' rising anger.

"Did he say anything else?" Gibbs demanded to know.

"Just that it's a shame that one of you has to die" Ducky shrugged, tone and expression grim, "He's arrogantly confident that it won't be him. But he also said on the off chance that it is him that dies, he wants you to keep looking for the person that tried to murder Caitlin. He said she'll never be safe until you find them".

Gibbs' jaw clenched in anger, his blood boiling in his vein. That bastard. How dare he make out like he was concerned for one of the best agents Gibbs had ever had the honour of working with.

"What do you make of it all?" Ducky asked curiously.

"Like I said Duck, the guy's a slick bastard" Gibbs angrily remarked, "But he's right. One of us is going to die".

He said it with such certainty that Ducky couldn't help but allow a small gasp to slip his lips. Without another word, Gibbs whirled on the spot and stormed back over towards his own car, getting into the driver's seat and slamming the door shut behind him.

"Oh Jethro!" Ducky protested, not wanting his friend to go charging in with a head full of steam which would likely lead to him making a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, he was completely ignored, "Jethro!"

Gibbs merely manoeuvred the car his was driving around both Ducky and his Morgan, and took off tearing down the street, the very definition of a man on a mission. One singular thought was going through his mind at the moment, burning like the blood running through his veins and pushing him onwards.

To hunt down and kill Ari Haswari.

No matter the cost.

And that's another chapter over and done with : )

Like I said before, nothing much has changed from the original chapter where this one and the last one were all one really long chapter. Just a few tweaks and mistake corrections. More than that however, reading back through this entire story has reminded me of just how much I enjoy writing this one in particular. It's amazing how by adding one character to a scene you can change the entire mood and the dynamic of it, so I'm having a lot of fun with that at the moment. I'm also looking forward to getting the 'Kill Ari' story finished now, so I can move on to the other episode in Season 3 of the show. So many great episodes came from that season, and I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun to put Kate into them : ) Mind Games in particular is actually one of my very favourite episodes of NCIS ever, so I'm very pleased that that one will be next ; )

Anyway, I just want to say thank you again to everyone that has reviewed, favourited and followed this story so far. I know I keep disappearing off for months on end, so I really appreciate you guys sticking with me for so long with this story. Beyond that, thank you so much for reading, and please leave a review for this chapter as they really do motivate me to get more content up quicker : )

Until the next time, keep on reading : )