Disclaimer: no legal rights to NCIS, no money being made.
Friend: Mike91848. I learned a lot from you. Without your input, this chapter probably makes no sense.
Warnings: same as Chapter One, unbata'd
DETERMINED TO HOLD
Chapter Thirteen, The nose knows
Previously on NCIS
Carlson got out a message that he needed a little more time, he needs to stay in jail two more days at the most. Something is going down and it's vital he stay there. Forget a mall bombing or planes crashing into buildings, do the words, 'hyper velocity rod bundles', 'space drones', 'THOR,' mean anything to you?"
NCIS NCIS NCIS
Tony rode in the back seat of the car as Gibbs drove them back to the Navy Yard. Ziva seemed to have found her permanent place in the front seat next to Gibbs and Tony couldn't even find issue with it. He was tired from sitting up all night and the stress from being under guard by thugs who could care less about his life, and all he wanted was a shower and bed but he would probably get no sleep to go along with it.
No sleep because, yeah, his old man had hit an all time, rock-bottom low this time and as hard as he tried, there was no escaping the want to have just had a normal loving relationship with a good, hard-working man, the man who had sired him. Wishful thinking as only a dumb jerk could have, which is what would keep him up all night; an impossible dream. But Senior would get what was coming to him this time Tony thought in a head-voice as cold as a frozen slab of dead meat and though he may have a sleepless night or two, there would be no tears shed on Tony's part.
So he did what Ducky said and 'shored up his sagging energy and declining mental acuity' with the enervating bars Tim had thrust at him along with an additional bottle of purified water. Good ole Tim, who sat in the back with him with his enhanced, modified tablet on his lap and his face scrunched up in one-track concentration.
"E-mail from Fornell says they picked up de Franco at his golf club playing in a tournament with several others including a plastic surgeon and the CEO of a medical supply company. Presumably they're his alibi for the day along with the bathing suit beauty contest he judged earlier; all tied up and nice and neat." Said Tim in profound disapproval. "He'll get away with his criminal activities and staging a kidnapping yet again!"
"He's not getting away with anything. Not this time." Vowed Gibbs as he took a turn excessively hard.
"What about Carlson, is he still in prison and the case so far, the Ringold's?" Asked Tony from the back seat. "Fornell must be pissed at having to divert some of his resources to saving my ass."
"Fornell's got nothing to complain about." Gibbs reply was full of sarcasm as he looked into the rear-view mirror at Tony. "We got them further in their case in days then they were able to do in months. They've got Carlson in solitary confinement and he'll be yanked out of that prison in the morning. The FBI figures it's too dangerous to leave him there any longer with the information he was able to obtain." When Gibbs appeared finished talking with his unusual long length of words, Ziva jumped in and spoke to everyone in the car in general but Tony deep down felt her words were aimed at him.
"The Ringold woman and Yonta Carlson remain in a safe house. I was on the detail to transport them there and I must confess, I was somewhat surprised at Mrs Ringold's behavior as she at first appeared a subdued, dull woman. But when she heard that her husband was also in custody, she gave vent to her camouflaged anger by threatening to garrote him in front of witnesses. I believe showing an intent to cause bodily harm to someone in the presence of law enforcement is tantamount to committing the act itself, hence premeditation. Your friend has sharp claws, Tony."
"You can't be arrested for making threats, Ziva, otherwise you'd be serving 99 years to life. What's your real point?" Using irony to mock Ziva was one of Tony's better tools, something he used to tickle his quirky sense of humor especially when she knew what he was doing.
Not unaware of Tony's mockery, Ziva chose to yeast above it. "I do not make threats Tony and I have no point, just an observation." Ziva turned back to smile briefly at him and Tony refused to belabor her comment any further. He now believed she just wanted to get a rise out of him, period, even if just in defense of his friend for reasons unknown except to herself.
Just then, Tim interrupted Tony's thoughts with a low moan of exasperation. "Great! Just great! One of the alerts I set up to monitor prison activity just went off. There was a prison fight, not a riot, thank goodness, Carlson was in solitary confinement but somebody got to him."
"Dead?" Tony uttered softly.
"Not dead, beat up pretty bad and a stab wound, probably a shiv. Still, he held them off, even put one of them down, dead it looks like, until the others backed off and help arrived." Tim sounded impressed.
"Where is he now?" Gibbs questioned as he pressed harder on the accelerator.
"Out of there, finally. Airlifted to a hospital for surgery on his wounds," replied McGee, still clicking on the silent keys. "So assuming this is terrorist threat related, how did they find out? We were careful."
"Yes, I know that Ringold did not get a message out." Ziva responded, confident the man had not been able to make a call before she took him down.
"There was always that risk," Gibbs admitted. "We knew it could happen, we took the chance anyway."
"We wasted a whole day today in rescuing Tony and..."
Gibbs took his eyes off the road to stare her down. "You call covering your partner's six a wasted day, Ziva?"
Ziva glanced over and met Gibbs' blue glare calm and unafraid. "That is not what I meant, Gibbs. Surely you do not believe..."
Tony suddenly broke his unusual silence, not interested in hearing Ziva's excuses when he had something more important on his mind. "That SOB de Franco knew about FBI Director's grandnephews and their mother. Are they safe? I never should have involved her but all I did was pay her a visit and play with the kids. She promised she wouldn't do or say anything to anybody for fear that she'd attract someone's attention. And she didn't, she wouldn't, and yet he targeted her. I can only assume that my father told him but how did He find out?"
"Different mole?" Gibbs pulled into the Yard parking lot and parked.
Yeah, one closer to home. Thought Tony.
"From now on, any discussions related to this case will be in my office or outside the building. No idle chit-chat, even to FBI and not in the bullpen.
McGee raised his eyes from the tablet he had been glued to during the ride back and frowned, unknowingly thinking similar thoughts to Tony's. Not liking where those thoughts were taking him but something didn't smell right and hadn't for a long time. He tried wiping that seed of doubt from his traitorous mind that the only person in the car who seemed to have a convivial relationship with Tony's father was Ziva David.
Sensing Tim's unease but not knowing the cause, and to make up for her earlier comment about wasting time, Ziva jumped right in, appeasing. "The family is safe, Tony. Just as a precaution, Kathy and the little boys are staying with her uncle until this case is resolved."
The team exited the car and headed inside the building. "It's late." Gibbs stated the obvious but everybody was too tired to roll their eyes as they entered the elevator.
On their floor, Gibbs was the first one out. "Write up a preliminary report then go home; be in by 8 to finish up. FBI's got de Franco on hold for tonight, DiNozzo, until they can charge him officially with attempted murder so go home. McGee, you can share what's kept you so fascinated on your I-Doodad thingy to Tony and Ziva while I brief Vance." As he strolled away upstairs, eyes did roll behind Gibbs' back this time over the new designation for McGee's tablet.
"He's right, though, McDoodad, what's going on? You've been grossly attached to your thingy for the last hour, Tim, even for you." Tony said tiredly as he searched for an analgesic in his desk for his sore arm.
"My thingy, DiNozzo?" Tim looked at him briefly in disapproval before turning back to the desk monitor he had switched to. "Carlson's out of surgery in good condition. The FBI's got de Franco locked up, we've got your father and Ringold sitting in cells, the women and children are in safe places. Why do I feel like we're missing something?"
"Because we are missing something, McMemoryloss. The bomb, remember, a big- whomping bomb in the hands of criminals and psychopaths and we're no closer to what's going down than when this whole mess started." Tony sounded mad and McGee wasn't happy either figuring he was blaming him.
"So? What? If you're thinking about blaming me, the way the day went, don't! We had other things on our mind today trying to keep you still breathing and..."
"Oh, so it's come down to that, huh, McGee?" Tony jeered. "Getting back on Ziva David's bandwagon, are we? You think the day was wasted saving my pathetic ass, too, right? Well, if you think that..."
"Children! Please calm down and lower your voices!" The three of them looked over at Dr Mallard who had just stepped off the elevator, and both Tony and Tim realized how ridiculously juvenile they'd just lowered themselves to and how loud they'd been in doing it."
"Sorry, Ducky, my fault. I'm going home. I'll see you guys in the morning." And Tony grabbed his stuff and left quickly.
"Sorry, didn't mean to yell, Ducky." Said Tim to the older man who was dressed to go outside.
"Well, I could hear your raised voices in the elevator but not most of what was said. Is everything all right?""
"It has been a long day and tempers are short, Ducky, although Gibbs will not like it that Tony left without his preliminary report typed and on his desk." The former assassin sat demurely at her computer as it booted up. She'd watched the escalating argument of her co-workers with interest. Was McGee coming out of his hero-worshiping phase back to the real world. He, too, must have realized the waste of time and inconvenience the day had been redirecting their focus and energy on retrieving Tony rather than literally saving the people of the world from a monstrous weapon geared up and aimed at them.
Tim pressed a few keys on his computer and closed it down, grabbed his belongings and prepared to leave. "Everything's fine, Ducky. If you're ready, I'll walk out with you, just let me get a copy of..."
"Tim, you have not completed your preliminary report, either. I would advise that you stay and do so." Ziva did not look up from her computer as she issued that warning seemingly without thinking and McGee was shocked at her authoritative tone.
Was she now giving him orders? Even Ducky looked at Ziva oddly. Granted, Tim's first humiliating but fleeting reaction was to fall back on old times, sit back down in his chair and start typing at her order, but the thought came and went in a flash and indignation took its place, especially after thinking, what would Tony do? He straightened his back and tightened his jaw. Who did she think she was, the newly appointed Senior Field Agent? That was news to him and to Gibbs, too, he bet, not to mention Tony.
"Excuse me?" Tim said, wanting to make sure he had heard her correctly.
Ziva looked up surprised at the tone of his voice. "I am just saying, your report, McGee. You have not started it and are leaving against Gibbs' order." Her innocent look was cleverly real, on a par with Tony's look when undercover, bland and the truth or lie undeterminable. And he would have been fooled months ago, not anymore. She had given him an order cloaked as a suggestion as though it was her right and he wasn't as easily tricked into gullibility as he had been. His nebbishy geeky persona was on its way out and was never coming back. Oh, he was still geeky but pitifully ineffectual, timid and submissive, those traits had no place in his life.
Ingrained politeness kept his reply mild but firm. "Well pardon me for saying, Ziva, but it's really not any of your business whether I write my report or not." Tim removed a few sheets of paper from the printer while talking and signed his name.
"But just for your information, I wrote my preliminary while riding back to the Navy yard, all it needed was to be printed and signed." He dropped his report on Gibbs' desk and like Tony before him, walked quickly away with a silent but pleased Ducky in tow.
Ziva looked perplexed. What had she said to affront McGee?
NCIS NCIS NCIS
After an uneventful, surprisingly restful night, Tony came in early, finished his report than went to the diner and had pancakes. He'd talked to Fornell this morning and found out that they had de Franco on tape. The man wasn't as smart as he thought he was. He may have had his limo parked blocks away from where he dropped off Tony but surveillance cameras and satellite eye-in-the-sky had randomly picked up his vehicle just before it pulled away from the curb. Clearly a fluke but de Franco was seen through a defective darkened window with his hands around Tony's neck shaking him like a rattle snake shakes its tail. With that evidence and Tony's testimony, de Franco was going away for a long time.
Fornell said when the crime boss was asked about his insider information, de Franco wanted to make a deal. But it was no deal, Fornell said, his crimes were too horrendous for him to be set free from a long prison term. NCIS was going to have to find their own stool pigeon.
By the time Tony got back to the office, Gibbs was there as well as McGee and Ziva.
"Have a good pancake breakfast, Tony?" Ziva drawled smoothly, and out of the corner of her eye saw Tony's wide-eyed look of perplexity. She was aware Tony had come in early, did some useless fooling around, talked utter nonsense to someone and played video games on his cell phone before leaving for an all you can eat fatty, artery clogging breakfast. Or at least that's how she chose to interpret Carol Sutton's gossip.
For her own reasons, Ziva had ferreted out one of the few woman in the building she had found willing to be her friend and who had not shunned her out of jealousy over her abilities and position on the MCRT like most of the other women had. Carol Sutton was her name and she worked as a clerk in the records department. Too bad Ziva always thought of her in derogatory terms though she hid her contempt well. Carol had the misfortune of being head over high heels in love with Tony DiNozzo. The fool of a woman always liked to keep abreast of the Special Agent's every move, inside the building and especially if he left the building on foot.
In Ziva's opinion, any woman who showed such misdirected undying love for a man, especially this man, who did not even know she existed and who paid her the least amount of attention with a quick, fleeting smile and nod, deserved Ziva's contempt and was easy prey to be used. And if a toadbit smidgen of useless trivia about Tony slipped out of Ziva's mouth during their brief coffee break encounters or meet-up's in the ladies room, say, about Tony's father, and how anxious he was to reunite with his son, no one could blame her if this blubber mouth had taken it upon herself to contact Senior and was now on friendly terms with the man.
Ziva never talked about their cases or revealed anything of any importance work related but Carol ate up what she told her about Tony's habits, likes and dislikes. Carol was so pathetic, she hoarded what she knew about Tony to her bosom knowing that that was all the little bit she would ever be able to share of his life. But Ziva had not gauged the extent of Carol's obsession and her excellent snooping investigative skills until Carol had casually mentioned one day Tony's love for three little boys and how he would make an excellent father.
"Three little boys, Carol? How did you...?"
"Oh, I have my ways, too. But you gave me the idea and I'm pretty good at it. As a matter of fact," Carol looked around than continued in a whisper, "I'd gotten that close to Tony one time, I could see the peach lipstick smeared on his lips his floozy date had left when she smashed her lips against his in a so-called passionate kiss that looked more like a hungry gorilla trying to eat his tongue and poor Tony wasn't enjoying it one bit." Carol had said maliciously, her pretty face puckered in distaste. "But don't get me wrong, I'm not a stalker and I don't do it often, after all, I do have a life. And I know you've tried and failed to catch him so you can't mind if I try, right, it's my turn."
"I have tried...?" Ziva almost sputtered and her complexion paled considerably.
"Well, sure, everyone knows that. Actually, there's a bet going on in records about how many failed attempts you've made so far, you know, following him into the men's bathroom and sidling up to him all slinky and he just puts you down. Maybe he just doesn't like you because we all know he likes women, beautiful women, so shallow," she said adoringly, "and you're beautiful, so it must be he just doesn't like you."
Ziva had stopped even pretending to act nonchalant; she was furiously insulted, which this idiot did not even seem to notice, or just didn't care. The nerve...
"But Anthony, Tony's dad, that is, is so anxious and he pressured me a little so I told him about, you know, those boys and Anthony thought I would make a good mother for his grandchildren, so I have his approval to pursue my plans. Do you happen to know if Tony's stored his sperm in a sperm bank, Ziva?"
"...Sperm bank?" Ziva's hand shook and some of her tea splashed onto the table after trying to take a sip to relieve her suddenly dry mouth.
"Of course, I know that Tony will never see me in that romantic way, even though people say I'm attractive but just not in your class, of course, but once I am artificially impregnated with his sperm and carry his children to fruition, he may see me in a different light, don't you think?"
"What...?" Never one to be speechless in shock, nonetheless, Ziva had lost the power of speech.
Carol had continued in her delusion. "Yes, and the most fantastic thing, his father will allow me to raise the children in his mansion in New York, you see, and the children will have every privilege afforded to them as rightful heirs to the DiNozzo empire, but most important, I will have Tony's undivided love and attention."
Carol's eyes glittered with an unholy gleam as she stared off into the upper realm. A dropped piece of cutlery brought Carol's dark eyes back to Ziva and an end to the surreal. Ziva had the wherewithal, just barely, to keep her expression blank but Carol must have caught something because she nudged Ziva rather sharply with her bony elbow and laughed.
"You should see your face, Ziva," said the comely woman, cleverly amused. "Come-on, you're not jealous, are you? You know I'm just kidding, right? A girl can dream her dreams, can't she?"
"Dreams... of course," was all Ziva could manage as they left the coffee shop but Ziva knew when another woman was going after a man. Carol was lying about her dreams. To Carol, this was reality and she was deadly serious.
So, this morning Tony had gone to the diner and Ziva's expression had twisted in disgust for a moment at the idea that the woman had probably groveled along behind Tony like an abandoned, maltreated puppy to spy and drool and to hurry back just to tell her what kind of pancake Tony had for breakfast, blueberry, she'd said, and that she'd just happened to run into him and how they ate their breakfast together. Ziva again wondered if Carol Sutton was not as clueless of Ziva's ill-will feelings towards her as she had thought. Was Carol under the mistaken assumption she would be jealous? Was she, after all, a spiteful, conniving hag, returning dislike for dislike?
"Spying on me again, Ms David?" Tony's voice brought her back away from her sour thoughts of Carol Sutton.
"I, spying? Of course not, Tony. You are more than transparent, no need to spy. There is a drop of syrup on your shirt." There wasn't but he jumped up anyway to hurry to the men's room.
"There's no syrup on his shirt, Ziva, why'd you tell him that?" asked Tim who couldn't help smirking. "Not that I mind, mind you, after all the tricks he's played on us; I think my fingers are still numb from the last encounter with the super glue..."
Ziva tuned Tim out dismissively. Carol Sutton was becoming a problem. Her snooping had gone beyond innocent fun, a way for Ziva to get back at Tony, to assert her own dominance by knowing something he did not. But now, it was a dangerous invasion of the Agents life and any undercover ops he might be participating in. Carol Sutton had been the one to tell Senior about the FBI Director's grandnephews though Ziva did not know how she had attained that information. The conniving Senior had then passed that information on to the hoodlum de Franco. Ziva was still reeling from that artillery shell and hated to admit she was worried about what next, what would Carol do next?
Had Carol somehow found out about their case with the FBI, Agent Carlson, the Ringold's? Would she pass on what she knew to anyone who asked and would she implicate Ziva as her conspirator? This woman had no business working for this agency or any government agency where secrecy was tantamount to security and safety. But Carol was ruled by her fantastical whims and make-believe and had become a threat not only to NCIS but of even greater importance, to Ziva herself; yes, her job and ambitions, her relationship with Gibbs, and the other members of the team was in jeopardy. Her name could not be associated with Carol Sutton's, especially since she had been the one to cater to her delusions and egged her on in her mischief.
Again Ziva's thoughts were interrupted when Gibbs hung up his phone and started issuing orders. "DiNozzo, with me. We're going to interview the Ringold's. McGee, you and Ziva see what you can get out of Senior DiNozzo.
NCIS NCIS NCIS