Reading Time: 124 Minutes
Title: A Greater Sacrifice
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Eureka – minor crossover
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Episode Related, Fantasy, Kid!fic, Paranormal/Supernatural, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Discussion of suicidality, suicide missions, canonical level of violence
Author Note: Set during season 6 culminating with Aliyah. Not team friendly.
Word Count: 200,260
Summary: When Anthony DiNozzo is told by Director Vance that he must take one for the team, following the death of Mossad Officer Michael Rivkin, never did he imagine that the cost would prove so high. After a year filled with taking one for the team, Tony decides that he is not going to Tel Aviv, until he is blackmailed into going along by opportunistic politicians who see a chance to change the balance of power. Forced onto the plane taking Rivkin’s body home, an injured Tony isn’t sure that he will make it out alive or if there is anything left for him to come home to.
Artist: Lailath Quetzalli
The C-130 started its descent, heading for the runway at the military base at Ben Gurion Airport as Tony DiNozzo gave a barely audible groan of relief that the twelve-hour flight from Hell wasdrawing to aclose. Physically, Tony ached all over, but after the long haul flight in the unpressurized cabin, with no proper seating, just webbing to recline in, his fractured humerus, two cracked and numerous other bruised ribs felt like they were on fire. Hisbreathing was slightly laboured, and Tony knew his scarred lungs were protestingloudlythat going on a long-haul military flight barely 36 hours after surviving a fight to the death with a Kidon-trained assassin, MichaelRivkinhad been an incredibly insane idea.
The thing wasthough, it had not been Tony’s choice. Hedidn’t want to be here, but he’d been given no choice.
So okay, perhapsdoingthe trip without the benefit of any analgesia was certifiable, and that had been his choice. His choice ostensibly, yet in truth, he really didn’t feellike he had any choice. Tonyknew that he couldn’t afford to take anything to dull the pain due to his idiosyncratic reaction to pain medication. Unfortunately, it often resulted in deranged and unfiltered verbal rambling and must be avoided at all costs. Soswallowinganything other than the mildestofTylenol was out of the question.
If this was a regular mission, if Tony had been on hisown,or even just been with McGee, he might have given in and taken somethinga littlestrongerfor the pain. Hemight risk it if it was just a question of giving McGee heaps of fodder for his Deep Six books and hisdeeplyentrenched belief in DiNozzo’s lack of intelligence and general incompetence. Lordknew McAuthor’s time down in the cyber unit inflated his sense of grandiosity even more than Tim’s short stint as SFA several years ago when Gibbs retired down to Mexico for four months.
At this point in his eight years on themajorcase response team, Tony wasn’t worried about McGee’s poor opinion of him (could it get any worse),or even about exacerbating the already f*cked up chain of command that Gibbs fostered on the MCRT. Stayingalive, living to fight another day – that’s what did concern him, which was why he’d shunned the offer ofstronganalgesia. He’dmade do with over-the-counter Tylenol, which was not all that helpful, but it was definitely much safer.
Also, while it was not vital to his survival, the atmosphere on board the plane had been chilly, at least from Leon Vance, who was livid. After all, Tony had disregarded the NCIS director’s ruling that the investigation into ICE Agent Thomas Sherman’s death was closed, and based purely on the orders of his superior, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Tony continued to investigate the matter. It just didn’t sit right with the experienced agent, who didn’t for a moment believe that the Hamas terrorist, Abin Tabal ‘accidentally’ killed ICE Agent Sherman. Tabal was not the sort of man who would care about preserving an American agent’s life!
The dead ICE agent had been working as part of a team of Immigration Customs Enforcement agents assigned as a protection detail for heads of various federal agencies, meeting in secret at SECNAV Davenport’s residence. The FBI, CIA and ICE were partaking in a clandestine interagency conference masquerading as a cutthroat poker game. Terrorists like Abin Tabal didn’t spy on them or accidentally kill anyone, and then just go back to their hotel and top themselves because they made a scene. It was a ludicrous scenario but one that Leon Vance seemed eager to accept as fact. Too eager!
When he’d heard from Abby that the terrorist’s laptop had been connected to the internet at Ziva’s apartment, Tony had immediately understood the implications of that information. It wasn’t that she was colluding with Abin Tabal either, but he admitted that it looked bad. So, thanks to him following Gibbs’ stupid f*cking Rule 1 – never screw over your partner, he’d rushed to Ziva’s place to try to protect her from the sh*t that would soon hit the fan.
Whether Rivkin had deliberately set her up as the patsy or not, Tonysimplywanted to warn her that she was in deep trouble because the drunken Kidon assassin had messed up. Heclearly had a problem with alcohol; Tony knew the signs all too well. Heknew that even though she was not associating with Tabal, she was involved with Rivkinwhohad already been warned to leave the country.
Ziva was in a lot of trouble and Gibbs would be devastated that the apple of his eye, his surrogate daughter had lied to him so brazenly. Exactly what Tony had hoped to achieve in hindsight, he wasn’t really sure – maybe he could persuade her to come clean with Gibbs before he learned about it from the forensic evidence. Certainly, the last person Tony expected to encounter at Ziva’s apartment had been Rivkin – he’d killed Tabal and only an idiot would have hung around taunting them. He should have been on the first plane out of DC after killing the last of his targets, not hanging around getting plastered. He was supposed to be one of the mighty Kidon-trained assassins.
Before their violent encounter at Ziva’s apartment, Tony had only met Rivkin once before, earlier that same daywhenhe deliberately engineered an encounter to remind him that the Mossad Officer was no longer welcome in the US. Sohe didn’t know him, but he sure recognised a drunk when he saw one. Afterall, Tony had two alcoholic parentsandasa specialist undercover agent, he’d spent enough time pretending to be under the influence of liquor when he was stone-cold sober. Rivkinwas a drunk – albeit a high-functioning one. Being a Kidon-trained killer who was a high-functioning alcoholic likeSenior,made him even more deadly and dangerously out of control.
The hard truth was that his handler should have pulled him from the mission and sent him packing back to Mossad. Itwas outrageous he’d been allowed to remain in the field in his impaired state. Ofcourse, now that he knew that Ziva was his handler, it became immediately apparent why Rivkin hadn’t been recalled to Israel. Shewasn’t just his handler, shewas also his lover. Hewas the guy she’d hooked up with after she was sent back to Israel during Leon Vance’s dumb as f*ck Mole Hunt.
Honestly, a ten-year-old could have come up with a more mature plan than the one dreamed up by Jenny Shepard’s replacement. Wasit because of his feeble attempt to track down a serious threat to the country’s NatSec that the little tête-à-tête at Davenport’s place had taken place sans Vance? Werethey all laughing their asses off over his ridiculously pathetic hunt-a-molegambit,to try to find out who it was in NCIS that was cooperating with a terrorist? Andwhy the hell not – it was amateur hour, after all.
The whole thing sounded about as real as the half-baked convoluted plot twist that Thom E. Gemcity dreamed up for a Deep Six story. L.J. Tibbs and McGregor hatch a plan so that they can catch the ‘dirtbag’ mole who is more than a match for anyone else at the agency. The only difference was that Vance was the director of an entire agency, responsible for national security. Gemcity, on the other hand, wrote fiction. Hmm…okay… semi-fictional sh*t, since anyone with a brain could see that his characters and plot were based on real life.
Yet DiNozzo could kind of see why he used real life to base his books on. When he strayed from reality, the plot became ludicrous. The whole Jimmy being into necrophilia and worked as an autopsy assistant and Ziva and himself going at it every chance they got, even while they were at work storylines were laughable. They were like something out of some masturbatory fantasies of a horny little thirteen-year-old male. The only ones going at it like bunnies on the team were Jimmy and Michelle Lee. Even though Black Lung and Michelle had been far from discreet, McGee never had a clue what was really going on, right under his condescending MIT nose.
Yet despite Vance having made a complete clusterf*ck of not just the Domino fiasco, he’d also tolerated having a dangerously compromised Kidon-trained assassin operating illegally on US soil. A simple call to the Mossad director warning him that Rivkin was out of control could have avoided this mess. Yet he had the gall to be pissed off with Tony for doing his job when Vance refused to do his! He was furious that he continued to investigate the death of Agent Sherman instead of sweeping it under the rug, as the Toothpick seemed to prefer. The ICE agent had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had the misfortune of encountering Michael Rivkin, but he deserved better than for it to be hushed up just so the director and SECNAV didn’t ruffle Eli’s feathers.
Yep, the director chose to be pissed off with Tony instead of being pissed off at a foreign spy and assassin who was operating right under their noses, and it rankled with Tony. An assassin who, even after f*cking up his mission and killing a federal agent while spying on his allies, compounded the comedy of errors when he assassinated Abin Tabal, with a half-assed attempt to make it look like a suicide. Rivkin was in the US illegally, and he had refused to leave the country; he’d hung around f*cking his handler instead, and Tony was fairly sure that for all of that, he was following Daddy David’s orders. So obviously, Ziva had been handling a lot more than just his intel and logistics, instead of doing her job as a control agent, making sure that he left the US asap.
Hell,NCIS had told him unequivocally to leave the country more than once.SACLara Macy, Gibbs and Tony had alltoldhim that per the FISA warrant, he mustleave(although, significantlyVancehad not warned him off), but clearly, the assassin was too drunk…too arrogant to realise it was advice he should not have ignored. Theadvice that his handler (who was not drunk) should have been followed through on, except she’d been as hopelessly compromised as he was. Whata pair Ziva and Rivkin made – and she had the unmitigated gall to blame him for Rivkin’s death. Talkabout being delusional!
Then again, Ziva had always been deluded, convinced that he was lusting after her, that he wanted to sleep with her. Evenwhen shewas first seeingMichael after the team reformed after Gibbs and Vance believed they caught the Mole, she’d tried to come onto him. Rightafter that whole sh*tstorm with the fake war games scenario that left him sporting yet another concussion thanks to her, before they’d discovered it was all alie;that they’d been set up to like pawns on a damned chess board. Theywere in the main elevator when she put the moves on him in his state of fury.
Maybe that’s the way the Mossad dealt with rage and betrayal, f*cking each other but it wasn’t his way – he preferred releasing his anger by beating the crap out of a punching bag, and if that wasn’t an option, to go on a long run until he couldn’t stand up. Aside from that, while Ziva was most certainly physically beautiful, Tony had a sixth sense when it came to sniffing out other wounded individuals. Perhaps it was due to his own abusive childhood which left him seriously flawed, but he knew when he met Ziva that her soul was damaged – she was pure unadulterated anger underneath that enticing façade.
No way hewouldeverallow himself to be vulnerable with her like that.Shewas like a black widow spider, likely to eat her mate after mating. Okay, so she didn’t eatRivkinobviously, but she might as well have doneso,by not doing her job. Hewas still dead, and she bore partial responsibility for that!
And when it came to them getting together, there had always been the massive elephant in the room which he could never forget nor forgive. Ziva had compiled the dossiers on each of them for her half-brother Ari, and it was partly why Caitlin Todd was dead. So no, Tony had never been tempted to take even a quick roll in the sheets with Little Miss Mossad. Even if she was an exotic beauty and even if she wasn’t tainted by her father’s monstrous abuse. And having endured his own form of hell with two seriously flawed parents, he knew what an absolute disaster it would be if they overcame all the other obstacles and got together.
So despite Ziva using her Kidon-learnt seduction techniques to break him, he clung tenaciously to his conviction any relationship between them would be disastrous. Hisexcusein turning her downwas Gibbs Rule 12, appositely appearing on the Boss’ list of rules after an encounter with his then probie Jenny Shepard left the boss bruised and battered – at least emotionally. SoTony quoted it ad infinitum to Ziva David, trying to stem her constant attempts to seduce him. Yeah, okay… constant, except when, perversely, she was doing her level best to castrate him psychologically and professionally. Intuitively, he understood if he’d succumbed to her attempts, it would be the death of him, physically, emotionally, professionally.
How ironic was it then that he hadn’t been tripped up by his libido, turning down her attention every single time, and she still managed to destroy his life. Ithad that stupid f*cking Rule 1 – never screw over your partner – that landed him in trouble. AndTony was enough of a pragmatist to realise his pathological need to protect the people who worked with him was probably as big of a weakness as his libido. Ifhejust called in the on-duty team of agents and had them bring Ziva in to be questioned about the laptop and its connection to a Hamas terrorist, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
In trying to have her back (because she was his partner) and wanting to warn her about the evidence implicated her in the whole death of Agent Sherman, at the very least for obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact, Tony ended up being as compromised as if he’d been screwing the Mossad liaison. Notbecause he trusted Ziva – he’d already caught herout,lying to him, sohewas not surprised by her further lies, nor did he harboured any burning sexual desire or romantic love for her. Itwas purely out of respect for Gibbs as his mentor and boss, knowing he regarded Ziva as a surrogate daughter that he hadn’t left the matter to the on-duty team to fetch her.
Unfortunately, Tony learnt far too late that it was a sentimentthat wasnot reciprocated by his boss. He’dbeen careful to shower attention and support on Ziva while being standoffish to the point of outright rudeness to his senior field agent. Clearly, Gibbs didn’t believe in being Switzerland!
Plus, when Leon Vance announced that Tony would be accompanying himself, Gibbs, and Ziva to Israel with Michael Rivkin’sbody,to be interrogated by Director Eli David during his investigation into Officer Rivkin’s death, Gibbs had remained uncharacteristically mute. Nota peep out of him!
The honest truth was that Tony had never liked or trusted Leon Vance, even before the asshole sent him off as Agent Afloat in punishment for Jenny Shepard’s death. No, it wasn’t even because of his looming, disapproving presence when Jeanne Benoit accused him of killing her arms-dealing father because he’d lied to her when he was undercover. Tonydidn’t know if Vance oozed disgust out of every pore due to the unsanctioned undercover op that Director Shepard was running, because Tony had done her bidding or because it failed.
But seriously, Tony had no idea that the mission was unsanctioned – no way would he have had anything to do with it, but because he respected and admired Gibbs and Shepard was his probie, Tony had foolishly trusted her. Besides, Gibbs had conditioned him (head slapping him when he got too nosy) to not ask questions… so he didn’t. He was also just plain exhausted running a team of people (sans Michelle Lee who at least gave him respect) who thwarted him at every turn, all wanting their real leader to return. Having Ziva and McGee give their bare minimum to the job, which, collectively, was only three years as investigators between the trio, left him to do all of the heavy lifting.
No, Tony’s initial dislike of their newest director stemmed from the case of the Marine reservist Capt. John Rankin, who was killed by sniper fire in Iraq. Vancehad refused to let Gibbs go to Iraq to investigate, making him stay stateside to handle the well-connected widow but willing to send two people to the Green Zone, where the captain had been killed. Heasked Gibbs for recommendations. Gibbshad nominated him and Ziva, although he was pissed off about not going himself. Itmade sense to send the 2IC – Tony had been team lead for three months; he was a former homicide detectiveandhehad over 12 years of combined experience as a cop and federal agent. Ziva was an expert in the middle east and spoke a sh*tload of languages from the region, so it also made sense for her to go… or it would have if she was an actual NCIS agent. However, Vance wanted to send McGee and Nikki Jardine as he thought he had potentialandhepicked Nikki because he didn’t want to send a Mossad Liaison to Iraq. Inthe end, Tony had gone, as had Jardine, and the case had been successfully solved, but it also created even more fault lines on the team.
McGee had been desperately eager to go – too eager. Hehad never been outsideofthe US on NCIS businessandeveryone else on the team had been to Baghdad but him. Tonyknew that Gibbs was still pissed off with McProbie over Tim’s massive FUBAR error during the takedown of the suspect at Walter Reed, a Marine – juiced up on steroids and in a full-blown roid rage was threatening patients and rehab staff when the MCRT tried to apprehend him. Gibbshad been making inroads into Corporal Worth, Marine to Marine, but Timwanted to one-up Ziva and Tony in Gibbs’ presence, so he raced in to cuff the suspect without the Boss’ go-ahead. Itset the volatile Marine off againandithad taken all four of them to subdue and restrain him. Worse, every member of the team incurred injuries fromhisdumbass miscalculation.
The point was that Gibbs was still angry with McGee, so if he thought the Probie was desperate to go overseas, he’d make damn sure he got left behind, probably until Tim went grey and learnt to follow Gibbs’ orders in future. Even if the boss wasn’t furious about him getting everyone injured, Tony thought it was highly likely that Tim, with barely three and a half years of investigative experience, would be sent to a war zone as the sole investigative agent in a high-profile murder, but stranger things had happened. However, not if he acted like an over-eager puppy, which was why Tony told him not to volunteer.
In the end, the decision on who to send had already been decided inMTAC,when Gibbs and Vance thrashed the issue out in front of the MTAC analystswhotold Tony about it lateron. Theteam had already been finalised, even as Vance smugly let both Nikki and Ziva make total idiots of themselves in front of him, he’dalready ruled that Ziva wasn’t goingbuthelet them fight it out, enjoying the entertainment. Butnot satisfied with havingJardine and David fight over the translator/ Middle Eastern expert slot,hesaunteredoverto McGee’s desk to admonish him for not volunteering, telling him that Tony had – which was a flat-out lie. Tonyhad talked to the Acting Director about the plan, but only after Gibbs informed him he wasgoing,and that Nikki was going with him.
He could only conclude that Vance heard him tell McGee not to volunteer or heheardthe probie asking Abby for advice about it in the lab. However, Tony had been referring to Gibbs when he offered that sage piece of advice. Evenwhen the bosswasn’t pissed at him for the Cpl Worth debacle, you never let Gibbs know you desperately wanted an assignment. Hegot too much pleasure inmaking surehe allocated it to someone else.
But it was right about then that Tony realised that the Acting Director, Leon Vance, liked playing his people off against each other. Probably almost as much as he enjoyed watching them fight in front of him to earn his blessing. By God, Vance was as Machiavellian as Gibbs was but with even more power. His subsequent behaviour after Director Shepard’s death with his crazy labyrinthine plan to catch a mole confirmed he was way too caught up in James Bond-type plots of espionage and political machinations. Unfortunately, this crisis also proved that he had his eye on a bigger prize than the agency or its agents. He’d been right not to trust him, and Tony was getting f*cking tired of not being able to trust his superiors.
Vance shanghaied him, despite Tony being already cleared by IA, who had declared his shooting of the Kidon assassin as self-defence when he tried to arrest him – given the highly salient factor that Rivkin had already been told to leave the US, but he had repeatedly ignored the directive. Andthere was the forensic evidence Gibbs and McGee collected after Mossad blew up Ziva’s apartment to thwart their investigation. Vancehad also completely ignored the fact that Tony’s investigation of the death of a fellow agentplus,a highly suspicious suicide of a knownterrorist,was undertaken with Gibbs’ authorisation. Notthat Gibbs had subsequently had Tony’s six. No, after telling him to keep digging, he’d hung him out to dryandTonyrecalled how on Gibbs’ watch, he’d almost died after getting shoved out of a plane without any damned jump training at night. Lookedlike this time, he might succeed in getting him killed.
During the IA investigation into Rivkin’s shooting, Gibbs had failed to confirm that Tony had been operating with his knowledge and approval, and then when Leon Vance illegally ordered him to Israel so he could throw him under the bus, all for a so-called ally who demanded his head for killing Rivkin. A foreign agent, who was carrying out illegal operations (as in multiple assassinations) and killing a federal agent in the process of his illegal activities. Not to mention his attempted murder of Tony, who’d stupidly gone to a team member’s apartment, wanting to give her a heads up that she was in deep sh*t. Yes, he failed to follow protocol, by not taking additional agents with him to confront Ziva, as Vance was at pains to point out, because he had been following Gibbs’ most sacrosanct rule to always have your partner’s back. Then in the ultimate of ironies, Gibbs left him to be hung out to dry, screwing him over, the f*cking hypocrite.
Between the hypocrite’s toadying to Leon Vance and his sickeningly overly solicitousness towards Ziva, Tony faced the inescapable truth that Gibbs had broken his own damn rule. He had screwed Tony over to give succour to someone he cared about who bore far more blame for Rivkin going off the rails and being killed than he ever would, even if the bullets that ended the Kidon Killer’s life came from Tony’s gun. Ziva had repeatedly lied to Gibbs and Tony, she had failed to inform them that she was Rivkin’s handler. She’d failed to have him extracted, even when she would have to have been catatonic not to see he was seriously compromised.
And where the hell had Rivkin gotten the dumbass idea that Tony was jealous of him because he was sleeping with Ziva? Theonly other person who believed that was Ziva herself, unable to reconcile that allofher attempts to seduce and compromise him were woeful failures.Allofher failed attempts to compromise him, unlike her success vis-a-vis Gibbs and McGee, must have affected her far more than she let on, feeding into her deluded thinking that he was jealous of her ‘relationship’ with Rivkin. Inthepastwhen he’d turned down her less-than-subtle seductions, she hit back at him, insisting that the reason he refused her was that he must be gay. He’dretorted that if that was so, then how did she reconcile that with the intel she had collected on him for Ari’s dirt files since she’d profiled him as a man slu*t for anything in a skirt? Eithershe wasn’t as great at seduction as she believed, or she’d screwed up in preparing his profile – which was it?
Clearly, the little bee he’d oh so casually dropped in her bonnet, pissed off with her petty PsyOps, must have festered, tipping her over the edge into delusion. The Sophie’s Choice he’d presented to her had obviously been too much for her to handle, spilling her over the edge of reason, deluding herself into thinking that he was lusting after her and jealous because Michael had her. It was pretty f*cked up, though and if she hadn’t shared her delusion with Rivkin, then maybe he would have decided that taking a nice trip to the Navy Yard wasn’t such a catastrophic failure, after all. The worst that was likely to happen was he would be deported back to Israel, but thanks to Ziva filling his head with her delusions, he was being repatriated back home in a pine casket.
Whatever the emotional temperature of his teammate and liaison officer hadbeen,before Rivkin’s death, it had moved on from plain delusional and rocketed right into the realms of mouth-frothing rabidity. This was why, when faced with a 12-hour flight, he dared not lower his guard around her by taking any painkillers that might make him even more vulnerable than he already was. Eversince he set foot on the plane, it was likehe’d entered enemy territory with Gibbs and Vance lined up alongside her. They’dalready shown they were willing to overlook Ziva’s clearculpabilityinthe matter ofRivkin, favouring throwing him to the wolves instead. Tonywould be a fool to let his guard down around any of them.
He really needed to visit the headbutdespite Tony’s bladder being about to explode, there was no way he would take a leak mid-flight. Toget to the spot designated as thehead,at the back of the plane, he would need to walk right past Ziva.Withthe level of hate and angerwhich wasradiating off the Mossad liaison, he was prettydamnedsure that it would be enough provocation for her to erupt into a furious avenging angel.Hissole objective right now was to make it onto Israeli soil without incurring any more injuries from Kidon assassins. Evenif he managed to make it to the head without her attacking him, with effectively only one arm (since his left one was strapped to his chest), the idea of taking a piss into a bottle one-handed was far from appealing. Herefused to make himself any more vulnerable to his enemies than he already was, so he stayed in his ‘seat’ and ignored his discomfort and considerable physical pain.
At least on the ground, he couldattend to his bladder in private.Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the pain from his injuries though. Hecould not afford the luxury of dealing with his physical pain when he was on the ground; he would need all of his wits about him when they landed. Asfor the emotional and psychological pain of betrayal by his boss, his director, and his deranged teammate and miscellaneous powers that be, who’d sanctioned this trip or conveniently developed myopia, Tony suspected that would never heal. Evenif he survived the ‘trip’which was highly unlikely.
Once the plane finally landed, they stood around on the tarmacwaitingfor Officer Rivkin’s casket to be unloaded. OfficerAmit Hadar was waiting to welcome them to Tel Aviv, and he nodded deferentially at the Director’s daughter. Zivawasobviouslyfar below Officer Hadar in rank and experience but was clearly usedto being treated by Mossad rank and file with exaggerated obsequiousness.Tonyfiled itaway,inside his head for later – if he had a laterofcourse.Inthe meantime, they all came to attention when the C-130’s crew came out bearing Officer Rivkin’s coffin, draped in the Israeli flag. Tonyhad been well schooled by his alcoholic parents in the social niceties (despite their drunken, ugly, and abusive behaviour towards him in private)sohe knew how to stand there, acting like he was paying respects to a colleague.
He was, after all, a past master of facades. Smokeand mirrors came aseasilyas breathing did to the undercover agent.
No, that wasn’t entirely true. After contracting the plague, then pneumonia, and nearly dying, his scarred lungs made breathing anything but simple these days, plus his bruised ribs hurt like a bitch. But as he stood to attention, despite his assorted physical injuries, Tony couldn’t help wondering, if their roles had been reversed, and he was in Israel carrying out an illegal mission, if he had f*cked up then resisted arrest and been killed by Michael, would Rivkin have been dragged to the US to be held to account?
Would he be forced into this travesty of an empty gesture of paying respect to the dead? Topay his respect to an agent who was intent on killing him for the apparently heinous crime of attempting to arrest him for murdering a fellow agent.
Would his own director have demanded that Tony’s body be returned home and that the man who tried to arrest him be forced on a plane for 12 hours despite being injured and being medically ill-advised? Tonyseriously doubted it.
Still, as the undercover specialist he was, none of his feelings were discernible to the people surrounding him. Asthe casket was handed over to the Israeliauthorities, Tony felt a sense of relief that soon he could use the head to empty out his distended bladder and also rehydrate since he was parched.
Another part of him dreaded what was about to happen. Heknew he would need to have his wits about him. Thelast thing he could afford was to let his guard down…not for a minute. Feelinglike he was headed to the execution chamber, he accepted Officer Hadar’s invitation (which wasn’ta realinvitation) to ride back to Mossad with him. Heclimbed into the black SUV with a mounting sense of despair.
He couldn’t believe that Gibbs hadn’t even paid lip service to his SFA’s welfare, not even a ‘see you there,’ as they drove off with asense offoreboding about what was to come. Hewonderedbrieflyif he’d see any of them again. More importantly, did he even want to?
Part One: The Greater Betrayal
“In the military, they give medals for people willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may survive. In business, we give bonuses to people who sacrifice others.” ~ Simon Sinek
Yesterday:
Tony leftGibbs’basem*nt, feeling dejected. When had he become the enemy all of a sudden?
Hell, Gibbs had admitted to him that he didn’t like the sh*t that Rivkin had been up to any more than Tony did when they were back in the office. Told him to stay on the Kidon assassin because he knew the arrogant piece of work was still in the country. That was despite being ordered by Gibbs to depart. He was in DC…with Ziva.
As he drove away from the Alexandria house, DiNozzo wondered savagely if Gibbs had even bothered to chat with Ziva about her lying to him regarding Rivkin. Somehow, he doubted it. When it came to Ziva, there was a freakin huge double standard with what the Boss would let her get away with. There always had been!
She frequently disobeyed Gibbs in the field and never faced any consequences. The latest failure to obey direct orders had been the fake f*cking war games fiasco; when they got caught, she went totally psycho ninja chick and tried to overpower a room full of highly trained and very pissed-off Marines. Tony had ended up with yet another damned concussion to had to his list. All because she disobeyed orders and blamed it on reflexes. Yet Gibbs didn’t even suspend her for it, but if it had been him, the Boss would have shown him the door, but she got a metaphoric slap over the knuckles. Oh, and a pathetic, don’tdo it again!
And even more infuriating, when he was venting his fury at being deceived and manipulated by their superiors again, even after all the sh*t with Jenny Shepard and La Grenouille, Svetlana Chernitskaya and her terminal illness and committing suicide, Ziva had the gall to lecture him. She’d told him smugly that it was their job to follow orders. But it sure didn’t seem like it was hers, at least not from where he was standing, and his post-concussion headaches agreed!
Okay, maybe Ziva had been in a difficult situation in her liaison role and her other role asMichael’scontrol officer. Still, itdidn’tabsolve her of her responsibility to obey US laws, no matter how much she felt that Israeli ways were superior.
He had been butting heads with her ever since they started investigating the death of Marine PFC Nick Chandler and Rivkin turned up to thwart their investigation. He’d even had one screaming match with her in the bullpen where she fiercely justified the Kidon assassin breaking US laws and putting the lives of the public in danger. Her sh*tty attempts at subterfuge as she straddled her role at NCIS with her one with Mossad had been pretty transparent. Even McGee, had he been here in DC and not playing with the cool tech at OSP in LA, would probably have picked up how evasive she was being. And Tim wasn’t the most observant agent, especially when he was lost in his computer, tracking down leads. She hadn’t been exactly subtle…the constant phone calls between herself and Rivkin conducted in Hebrew were suspicious. Maybe it kinda made sense if she was his handler, even though she’d failed to disclose this fact, but Ziva did not exactly excel at being artful or understated; it made him wonder how she ever passed spy school.
Tony thought about how shedidn’teven wait for Gibbs to head off to Los Angeles before she ran out of the office, claiming to have some lead thatshehad to track down, but he knew she was lying. His lie detector might not have been as infallible as Gibbs,but,Tony had survived undercover for over a year with the Macalusos because he could spot when people lied to him. That performance ofZiva’swould never have cut it undercover, and it only put his hackles up.
How incredibly ironic that it had their little ninja chick who had thechutzpahto give him sh*t for lying to the team when he was undercover on the La Grenouille unsanctioned mission for her gal pal Jenny Shepard. She lectured himat length that teamsshouldn’tkeep secrets from each other, and she and the rest of the team, including Abby, had made him suffer for not telling them about the undercover Op. One that he was ordered by the head of theagency,not to discuss with ANYONE.
Tony had spent a lot of long, lonely nights in his four months agent a-floating thinking about that whole issue. He’d finally reached the conclusion that the reason they bitched and whined at him so much, was not because they cared that he was in danger and had no one watching his back. They were simply pissed off that he’d been able to pull it off, right under all of their noses. Not just being undercover without anyone twigging to it for a whole year but, he also continued to work as a federal agent, with none of them being any the wiser. Plus, for four months, he’d practically had to carry out investigations singlehandedly while leading the team, keeping their impressive closure rate from dipping because the team was so inexperienced, despite Ziva and McGee’s delusions of grandeur. Also, Ziva and McGee bitched when he gave them orders, argued with him, and frequently came into the office late. So really, what other choice did he have but to do the lion’s share of the work singlehanded.
Night after night, in the middle of the vast and unforgiving ocean aboard the massive aircraft carriers, plagued by guilt and insomnia, he would analyse those months after the boss was blown up in an explosion, then lit out for Mexico. Tony concluded that if they had known he was undercover,they’dprobably tried to convince Shepard that they should be the ones who should be doing the mission. He’dheard about what McGee had said that day inMTAC,via the NCIS grapevine when his much-cherished Mustang had exploded. After Shepard received his distress signal, she called Gibbs and McGee up to the multiple threat assessment centre, andthenshe gave them a brief summary ofTony’smission.
Despite her telling them about him activating his distress signal, which was a clear sign his cover was blown and that his life was in danger, McGee (with three years of field experience) had ignored that minor detail. Instead, telling the director that his cover was probably blown because Tony was trying to impersonate an online professor of Film and Cinematography. McGee meant to say, he should have been sent to date Dr Benoit because Tony was too dumb to be a college professor. The only problem was that it was Madame Director’s idea for his cover, and she did not appreciate McFoot-in-Mouth’s critiquing of her operational decisions. Then his car burst into flames, and everyone thought he’d died.
As Tony neared his apartment, he thought about Ziva and her hypocrisy, feeling decidedly fed up with how everyone was treating her with kid gloves when she had been the one mixing business with pleasure… oh and the ironydidn’tescape him either. She had taken a great deal of satisfaction in lecturing him about how incompetenthe’dbeen to fall for a marki.e., Jeanne Benoit. She took great pains to point out it would not have happened at Mossad. And yet it just did. Sure, Rivkin might not have developed any feelings for Shakira Zayid – she was just a mark, but hewas having sex with Ziva even while he was cutting a swathe through LA, killing terrorists, posing asShakira’sboyfriend.
Tony wasprettysure itwasn’tSOP for handlers to develop feelings for the agents they were supposed to be handling, but she had. Rivkin had been pretty damned smug about it when Tony found him atZiva’splace before the prick tried to kill him.
What was it he said? Yeah,that’sright,“You can question my love for Ziva, but youcan’tquestion her love for me.”
Which to someone with profiler training and experience in verbal and written content analysis was as good as admitting that he was using her and that he was awareshe’dfallen in love with him. But ithadn’tjust been about looking out for his partner, even ifhe’dbelatedly come to see that shedidn’tdeserve his loyalty.What neitherRivkin nor Ziva could begin tounderstand,was,that Tony had been a Fed for eight years and a cop for six.It incensed him to know that despite SAC Macy having obtained a FISA warrant to stop him from going around assassinating people, Officer Rivkin continued to thumb his nose at them.He’dattacked Tony and would have killed him if Tonyhadn’tshot first, even after begging the prick to stand down, not because he was afraid to kill him.He’dkilled before in self-defence, but because he knew that Ziva would be devastated.
But Rivkin refused to stand down, and since Tony was injured, there was no other choice.
It was kill or be killed, but Eli and Ziva were pissed off that Tony had killed their assassin, despite him giving the killer plenty of opportunities to surrender. Killing people illegally and refusing to leave the country when ordered was plain arrogant and stupidandsurely you must expect that if you break the law and get caught, then you can expect to be arrested. The man killed Tom Sherman and then tried his damndest to kill Tonytoo.
But hey, we mustn’t upset the delicate feels’ of Eli David or his super ninja daughter.
Maybe Daddy David should be asking hisownpeople, including his sainted daughterwhy,theyhadn’tsent Michael out of the country when he got caught.Ask why they let him stay, despite the presence of the FISA warrant that would have been communicated to Mossad and the Israeli Embassy, so they could hardly claim ignorance thathe’dremain in the US illegally. The US was supposed to be their ally, but Eliwas showing a f*cking lot of disrespect for another sovereign state andmoreimportantly, forIsrael’sally. And since Ziva was his handler, they could hardly claim he had gone rogue, like they did with Ari.
Hurting all over, especially his arm, ribs and his neck, Tony climbed out of his car, pissed off beyond limits with everything to do with the damned Mossad, including his teammate, Ziva David. Yet he was supposed to go upstairs and pack his bag like a good little puppet, get on a damned military flight and go to Israel to answer to Eli f*cking David!
For what? Not dying instead of Rivkin whenhe’dbeen doing his job, trying to take Rivkin into custody. He should never been in DC in the first place.
Climbing up the six front stairs to reach the lobby elevator to his apartment, Tony sent a silent but heartfelt plea to the elevator gods to‘please, please be working.’He seriously doubted if he was capable oftaking the stairs up to his third-floor apartment at this point. He groanedmiserably,as he stumbled into the metal cage and reached out to press the number three button, metaphorically crossing his fingers as the doors jerked shut and the ancient elevator shuddered into life.
‘Ohthank you, thank you, elevator gods!’
Honestly, Tony stillwasn’tentirely sure how he had survived the encounter with a Kidon assassin, and he never thought for a moment that the idiot would resist arrest. But he had! And Rivkin tried to kill him!
If Tonyhadn’tspent hours fighting with Gibbs and Ziva over the years, not to mention a lot of sneaky stuff picked up on the mean streets as a cop dealing with meth addicts, gang bangers and mafia goons, Tony would be the one right now in a pine box.
He waspretty damnsure that had that happened, like the whole Agent Sherman debacle, Leon Vance and SECNAVwouldn’tbe shedding any tears for him. More likely than not,they’dhave tried sweeping it under the rug, like some inconvenient yet unimportant little mess.They’ddone it with Abin Tabal as well as TomSherman,and to hell with the ICEagent’sfamily.
As Tony limped out to the elevator, he thought for a minute about what might have happened if it had been McGee who confronted Rivkin instead of him. If the Probiehadn’tbeen so intent on offering to buy‘Jules’aka ICE Special Agent Julia Foster-Yatesadrink, chances were high that he would have been down with Abby in her lab.They’dhave been searching through the laptop, which everyone assumed belonged to Abin Tabal but was reallyRivkin’s, whichhe’dswapped out at the murder scene. The computer that belonged to theterrorist,was found hidden inZiva’sbombed-out apartment, and no doubt it had all the intel on the terrorist training camp on it.
At this point, it was a crap shoot as to whether the data could be retrievedasaccordingto McGee, the hard drive was fried!
So, if McGee had realised that Ziva’s ISP was on the computer at NCIS, as suspicious as he was about Ziva and Rivkin when he was in LA, Tim would have headed over to her apartment too, demanding that Ziva tell him what was going on. The truth was that McGee’s time down in Cybercrimes for four months did wonders for his self-esteem, where the other Geeks had called him Boss and flattered his ego. Although he was not actually in charge down there even though the geeks had given him the honorific because he’d been a field agent and had carried a gun. However, those minor facts aside didn’t prevent him from returning to the MCRT with a huge side serving of arrogance.
He could have given Rivkin a close run for his money on that score, so Tony shuddered to think what could have happened ifhe’dgone toZiva’splace instead of Tony. Even if hehadn’trealised Rivkin was Kidon, McGeeheardenough ofZiva’sboasts about her Mossad training and ability to kill people with a paper clip to have given him pause, therewas her proficiency at hand-to-hand that should be a clue.Lord knows she wiped the floor with themoftenenough that McGee ought to beproperlycautious.However, the new and overconfident Tim might have seen it as the perfect opportunity to prove to Gibbs and Vance that he should be the senior field agent, and it would have been the last thing he ever did.
As much as his newfound egotism pissed Tony off, he would have been devastated if Rivkin had killed Tim.Tony was more proficient in hand-to-hand than McGee,andyet,heverynearly died.Not thathe’ddeliberately gone toZiva’sto confront him no matter what she or Rivkin thought. Contrary to what some people thought, Tonydidn’thave a death wish; if it had occurred to him that Rivkin was inside her place, alone, Tony would have waited in his car until Ziva arrived oratthe very least, gone in with his weapon drawn. But McGee was becoming a little too co*cky, and sooner or later, he was going to make a mistake; Tony just hoped that the consequencesweren’ttoo costly before he learnthewasn’tas good ashethought he was.
As he pushed the key into the lock of his front door, Tony flashed back on the case last year where the four of them had been surrounding Corporal Damon Worth. He had been off his face, thanks to steroid-induced psychosis (not that they knew that at the time), in a crowded physical therapy unit at Walter Reed Hospital afterhe’dbroken out of a secure psychiatric ward at Bethesda. Gibbs had been trying to talk him down.
Despite having the least experience in subduing suspects who were violent, drug-affected, or mentally impaired and being in the presence of his decorated former Marine gunnery sergeant boss, a former detective/vice cop, plus a deadly Kidon-trained assassin, McGeehadn’twaited around for Gibbs to give them the go-ahead to cuff him.Gibbs’insanely competitive leadershipstyle,meant McGee was desperate to one-up his teammates and win aGibbs’attaboy at the expense of Ziva and Tony. Needless to say, it did not go well!
Making them all compete against each other might work on some levels, for instancemakingthem dig deeper for leads to try to show up the others. But it also discouraged trust, cooperation, and teamwork, which were all critical in a situation like trying to take down Corporal Werth with minimal risk, not just to the team but to the general public. Instead of working together, he was so determined to winGibbs’approval that he rushed in without thinking and grabbed hold of Worth, which caused the Marine to flip out and become even more violent as he attempted toget away.In the end, it took the combined strength and expertise of all four of the team to restrain him and protect the hospital staff and patients from harm. However, they’dended up bruised and battered, and despite Tim dislocating his shoulder, Tony doubted thathe’dlearnt from his mistake.
Tony suspected itprobablywouldn’thave stopped McGee from tackling Rivkin ifhe’dfound him atZiva’splace. Someone like the boss really needed to smack some sense into him. However, unless Gibbs changed his intrinsic leadership style, the environment that had fosteredTim’sattitude would persist, and he would feel like he had something to prove.
Tony wearily pushed his door open and stepped inside. He desperately wanted a long hot shower if hewas even thinkingabout going on a long-haul flight. But maybe he should get some sound advice about whether he should follow those ordersor not. Dragging a federal agent off to be interrogated for defending himself to the head of a foreign intelligence service without the benefit of legal advice was certainly neither legal nor ethical. He was so damned tired of Shepard and Vance abusing their position as director.
As he shed clothes on the way to the shower, Tony was trying to figure out whohe shouldcall. Maybe Faith Coleman or Bud Roberts. He wished that Rear Admiral A.J. Chegwidden was still JAG; Tonydidn’tfeel the same connection with the current one, Major General GordonCresswell
Stepping gingerly into the shower and turning on the hot water, Tony groaned in relief as the more superficial‘owies’he’dcollected fighting Rivkin tamped down their painful throbbing from a four or five on the pain scale to a two or three. Although his ribs, larynx (from the chokehold) and left humerus plus his clavicle were still at least a seven, approaching an eight, he was still feeling somewhat more human than before. He wondered ifmaybe,he shouldask Tobias Fornell if he knew any agents who were also attorneys who worked at the FBI.
Hell, maybe he should tell Vance to do something anatomically impossible and take Fornell up on his offer for a job. Even going to work for an agency that had accused him of murder twice in the last few years would be better than being forced to go to Israel and kowtow to Eli David. Actually, this would now be the third time in four years that he was accused of murder – Ziva and her father seemed to believe after four years working with the Israeli,less,four months aboard the USS Regan and SeaHawk, the idea of Ziva with her Kidon lover had sent him toppling over the edge of sanity into pathological jealousy for his teammate, turning into a crazed murderer.
As he half-heartedly packed some things in his go-bag, still undecided if he was going to go to Israel as ordered by the director, Tony conceded that as much as Gibbs despised lawyers, he wasn’t Gibbs. It wasn’t wrong that he felt it was imperative to get advice from one about what he should do, and, he refused to feel guilty about seeking a legal opinion.
As he reached for his cell phone, he decided he would phone the now civilian attorney A.J. Chegwidden and get expert advice on his options, therewas a sharp staccato knock on his front door. He sighed wearily. He reallydidn’twant to see anyone right now. Reluctantly, Tony checked the camera in front of the door he had installed several yearsago,to see who was banging on his door.
He’dinstalled the camera because of the enemies he made over his years as a cop and agent. It paid to be careful. Peering through a peephole was not his idea of caution, somethinghe’dlearned the hard way. Back when he was just a green homicide detective back in Baltimore,he’dseen several people shot straight through the eye, The bullet lodging into the cerebellum when they checked out the peephole to check onwho’dcome calling.
Looking at the security camera, he could see a guy standing there, with medium brown hair, a bit nerdy looking, slightly under six foot and he was a stranger. Although IA still had Tony’s gun from the shooting, he still had his backup (plus a couple of personal weapons in his gun safe) and now he made sure his backup was in his sling since his shoulder holster didn’t work for him right now. Out of an abundance of caution, he called out, asking who was there. The nerd didn’t look like a Kidon assassin come to extract retribution, but then again, Haswari’s beautiful terrorist pal Marta hadn’t looked like a terrorist either, or even Middle Eastern. She was blonde and Swedish and deadly with a gun.
Nerdy Guy told him,“Gerrit Driessen,I’mfrom the State Department.”
State Department? Since when did Anthony DiNozzo warrant a visit from some dweeb from State? f*ck Rivkin – itdidn’ttake a rocket scientist to figure out that this was about the dead Kidon agent.
Tony called out through the door, telling Nerdy Guy to show him his ID, looking it over suspiciously.He’dnever seen an ID from the State Department, but it looked close enough to other government IDs that he was partially convinced.
He opened the door, his weapon co*cked as he stepped back to invite Driessen in.
Closing the door, Tony asked,“You carrying?”
The dweeb opened his jacket to reveal a handgun on his hip.
Gesturing with his backup Glock, Tony said,“Butt first, lay it down on the table. You are who you say you are, andyou’llget back when you leave.”
As Driessen carefully placed his gun on the table as instructed, Tony picked it up.Normally, he would unload the gunbutas he was trying to keep his eye on Nerdy Guy anddidn’thave full use of both hands, it was problematic.Picking it up, Tony made sure the safety was on and tossed it across the floor behind him, making it less accessible to the guy from State (ifhewas who he claimed to be)andeven if he reached it, it would give Tony extra time to shoot him. He was notexactlyin a trusting mood.
Driessen casually reached into his suit pocket, only to be confronted with the muzzle ofTony’sbackup Glock aimed at his heart. Realising too late that he should have telegraphed his intentions, he blanched violently.
“Hey, DiNozzo, stand down. I wasjustreaching for my phone. I figured, with how badyou’respooked, I find a mutual acquaintance who would vouch for me. See,”he uncurled his palm to reveal an innocent-looking cell phone, and Tony felta littlemore secure.
Driessen was right, hewas spooked…spooked and very pissed off. Having recently been bawled out for over an hour by Vance, whosebiggestissue with the damned report he wrote into the fatal shooting of Officer Rivkin had been how he could possibly have managed to survive and, even more of an insult, kill the Kidon-trained assassin. The point was that Ziva and any other Kidon alumni who happened to be here in DC under the radar or as‘attaches’to the Israeli Embassy were likely to be just as sceptical and unimpressed as Vance was. DiNozzo might play the fool, but he knew the Mossad took the whole eye for an eyephilosophy,very seriously. So he had no intention of letting them take any eyes from him…or other body parts, either.
The thing was that while Gibbs had turned up and given Vance a perfectly good explanation for Tony’s almost magical survival for his hand-to-hand with the Kidon killer, namely that Rivkin’s blood alcohol level showed he was hammered, it was only a part of the equation. The other part of why Tony managed to walk away from the violent assault was that people like Rivkin underestimated him. They thought he was a buffoon who barely managed to put one foot in front of the other, and, therefore, they never took him seriously.
Tonydidn’tknow anyone at State, unlike McGee, who had become rather well acquainted with the Deputy Secretary of State, Anna Elliot, during the stolen antiquities case when Tony was chained to the serial killer, Geoffery White. He alsodidn’ttrust Driessen, so he was not about to let the guy‘find’some mutual friend who could verify his identity. Tony would find his own verifier, thank you very much! In his book, it was better to be paranoid and alive than trusting and dead. Tony decided to start off with his friend, Nikki Jardine, and she called a trusted colleague at the CIA, Bruce Dunstan, whose girlfriend Evie Carver worked at the State Department. Evie described Driessen to Tony before he sent her a photo of the guy who was standing inTony’sliving room and verified his identity, telling him he was a Fixer. He thanked her for her help and ended the call, wondering what was going on?
“Is there a reason why a fixer from the State Department would come by my apartment to chat, Mr Driessen. As opposed to having me come into the office for a sit-down chat?”
The man nodded. “We don’t want anyone else to know we talked to you, and we needed to give you a heads up about what Eli David intends to do, once you get off the C-130 in Israel.”
Tony stared at him, trying to figure out if the nerdy guy was trying to be funny because hewasn’tlaughing. Driessen looked pretty serious, though.
“Hear me out and then ask your questions. Wedon’thave a lot of time.”
The fixer absentmindedly pushed his wire-framed spectacled further up the bridge of his nose, which Tony thought was probably a nervous twitch orelsea tell.
“OkaybutI’vegot stuff to do,”he said, like get legal advice asap.
“It is EliDavid’sintention to execute you when you set foot on Israeli soil, Agent DiNozzo. SECNAV and Director Vance have agreed to his demands for retribution, althoughtobe honest, it is more than vengeance. It is about his loss of face.”
The thought had already popped into his head a while ago, possibly because of the way Vance had attacked him for following up on Rivkin. It wasn’t like the assassin was there in the US with the knowledge or approval of the US authorities. He’d killed several terrorists in LA and DC killed an ICE agent, almost killed an NCIS agent, and was told to leave the country by Agent Macy days ago after she obtained a FISA warrant. Then Gibbs told Rivkin to leave the country while he was in LA, and Tony also told him to go after Agent Sherman’s death. Rivkin had ignored all three of them.
So then, why was Vance acting like a toady, wanting to kiss up toZiva’sfather? Itdidn’tmake sense. But then again, the speed with which the director had grabbed at the forensic and autopsy results for Abin Tabal, which were way too neat forTony’staste, was nothing short of indecent. The only reason Tony could come up with for the haste to close the case on Abil Tabal and Tom Sherman by the director before the final forensic evidence had even been run, let alone analysed, was hinky. Unless Leon Vance already knew (or at least suspected) who had murdered the terrorist and was willing to obstruct justice by covering it up.
This news from Driessen about Eli David was not a surprisebut,he was shocked by the news that Vance and Davenport had agreed toTony’sexecution. It strengthenedDiNozzo’sresolve to get hold of a lawyer asap, althoughhe was curious if it was true, then was it just Vance and SECNAV, or were there others who had also approved having a federal agent killed at the behest of an‘ally’as some pathetic quid pro quo?
How high up did it go, he wondered bleakly.
So yeah, Tony needed to investigateso that heknew,who and what he was dealing with.
“His loss of face?”he drawled mockingly.“Because I managed to not get dead whena Kidon-trained assassin decided I should get dead because I dared to place him under arrest? What makes Officer Rivkin so special?”
Driessen frowned. “Well, yes, that was part of it. Kidon operatives are supposed to be deadly. If you had been Spec Ops trained, it would have been a bad enough slur to Eli David but, you weren’t even military, and there is a lot of chatter about that,” Driessen pushed his glasses up his nose again as he wrinkled his brow.
“But look, Agent DiNozzo,it’snot just that you killed him, itis the mess that Rivkin made while he was here. His presence was noted in Los Angeles. He got warned off, and although he ignored the warnings, the OSP team was too good and stopped him from killing the rest of the cell in LA. Rivkin lost status for messing that up, and so did his director.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“Plus, he made a mess of the Abin Tabal execution; it was sloppy, and although Vance was very invested in the faked suicide theory, as you no doubt noted, it was too convenient in light of his attempt to eradicate the rest of the terrorists and failing miserably.”
Tony looked at Driessen, weighing him up. The guy looked like a dweeb-ish nerd, but he was deceptively incisive.
“Well, I did suspect that Rivkin had a problem with alcohol that was affecting him,”he admitted. Growing up with twoparents,whowere addicts, it was easy for him to spot the signs.
“Another embarrassing lapse for Mossad for not picking up on it,”the guy from State conceded.“But the lapsesaren’tjust about Rivkinwhowas aprotégé of Director David.It is about his son Ari Haswari going rogue. Even ordering his daughter to kill Ari could not undo the loss of face he suffered from his grand plan to sire a child with a Palestinian woman, creating the perfect mole. It failed abysmally.”
Shiiiit, Driessen just admitted to what Tony had long suspected, itwas Ziva who killed Ari, not Gibbs!
“It’salso about the debacle of Namir Eschel and the Iranian intelligence. His defection and then faking his own death was another extremely embarrassing failure for Eli, who mentored him, too. Eschel was only lucky that VEVAK killed him before Mossad did.”
Tony nodded,“Ihadn’tthought about it like that, but that is three incompetent or disloyal Mossad operatives in five yearswho’veeffectively given Eli David a black eye. I can see why he might feel his reputation has been compromised.”
And Ziva has been involved with all three individuals.
“Especially because of this terrorist training camp Eli is desperate to take down, which they believe to be somewhere in the vicinity of Somalia. Rivkin was trying to figure out its exact location,itwas whyhe was interrogating and dispatching that cell,but,wedon’tknow if he got that intel.”
“It would be theso-calledproverbial feather inEli’scap and could save his directorship?”Tony clarified.
“Yes and no. It would earnhima lot of kudos,it’strue. His reputation has become rather battered, buthe’snot worried about his job.It’smore thathe’spissed off that his omnipotent reputationisn’twhat it used to be.”
Tony was confused.“I’dhave thought that Haswari, Eschel and Rivkin would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the-powers-that-be not to fire him,”he retorted.“Wasn’tEschel also a friend of the David family?”
Looking at his watch, Driessen explained.“Okay, long story short,backin 1991, Eli was on the outs with his own agency. His marriage was in trouble due to his womanising, and he was sent to Amsterdam as punishment. Leon Vance was also in Amsterdam, but he botched it and the man he was supposed to be spying on tried to kill him. Eliforsome reason, decided to saveLeon’slife.”
“So now the director is calling in his marker, and Vance is happy to exchange my life for his?”he asked incredulously.
Rather than replying directly to his statement, the fixer shrugged.“Later on, when he earned his way back into favour back home, I think that was when Eli vowed not to let himself become vulnerable to being sidelined by his own people ever again.That’swhen he started amassing a large amount of gold and precious stones like diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, along withinformation,on anyonewho wasconnected. Friends, foes, terrorists, gun runners, criminals, politicians, and their families, hedidn’tdiscriminate.”
Things started falling into place – how Ziva would make a phone callandher contact would have intel on all sorts of mundane but hardly criminal information.No doubt, she waspumping her father or his‘not so willing’contacts.
Driessen was speaking,“…and we thinkthat’swhen he realised the value of doing favours for people after he savedLeon’slife. Especially after he started hearing talk aboutVance’sfuture in counterintelligence. Suddenly,a lot ofstrategically placed individuals ended up owing their lives to Eli. People who were talked about in rarified circles as being future powerbrokers. It meant he had a lot of loyal people who feltbeholdento him.”
Flicking a neutral glanceatTonyhe said,“Ziva David saved DirectorShepard’slife when they were working together in Syria. She also killed Haswari to saveGibbs’life,”he said mildly.
“That’sthe second time you referred to her shooting her brother,”Tony observed.“I always knew thatGibbs’report was not true. I suspected she was involved, butI’mguessing that if Eli routinely organised for people to owe him a favour, he would see nothing wrong in setting the whole thing up.”
“Good guess! And yes, aside from setting it up so that Ari would try to kill your boss, Director David ordered Ziva to execute Haswari when hedid,becausehe’dgone rogue and made his fatherandbyextension, the Mossad look bad. Eliatthat point, had no choice but to remove him. However, the flipside was that his execution earned Ziva DavidGibbs’loyalty and a solid place on his team.”
Tony felt nauseated.
There were times when the disillusioned agent wondered what the Hell he was doing at NCIS instead of being a cop. The sh*t Jen Shepard pulled – her unsanctioned undercover Op. to kill La Grenouille, then the sh*tstorm she left for others to clean up because she failed to complete a mission had taxed his moral code. But then Vance came along, he hoped things would get better, but they didn’t. The Toothpick dreamed up a stupendously idiotic plan to catch a mole, using Gibbs’ gut as a mole-sniffer-outer, but didn’t even bother telling Jethro why he was breaking up the team. At that point, Tony lost all respect for the guy’s abilities. All the harm it caused, and the totally unnecessary death of Brett Langer could have been avoided if he had read them in. Then, after the MCRT came back together, the Boss deliberately kept Tony in the dark about the wargames when even Abby knew what was happening. When Tony confronted Gibbs, he fed him bullsh*t about how he couldn’t run the risk that Lee would kill again, and he might have bought the BS, except that Abby was the world’s worst liar. It was far more dangerous for her to know what was going on than Tony, but he knew it was because the Boss wanted to punish him for La Grenouille, and he had almost resigned over it.
After this Rivkin crap,Vance’shypocrisy and the cold hard fact thatNCIS’snewest director was tainted by his‘association’with Eli David, it was the final straw.
Making a move to stand up as a precursor to getting rid of his guest, he said to Gerrit Driessen gratefully,“Right, well, thanks for the heads up, Driessen.I’llsee you out.I’vegot a letter of resignation, I have to write,”he said feeling his fury rising.
Driessen looked at him cagily.“No, youdon’tunderstand. Wedidn’tgive you a heads up so you could resign, Agent DiNozzo. We need you to get on that plane and escort OfficerRivkin’sbody to Tel Aviv and let Director David kill you,”he told him grimly.
Initially thinking that the fixer was joking, although Tony didn’t see the humour in his statement, he scanned Driessen’s face and came to the belated and stomach-churning conclusion that the man was not joking… he was stark raving mad, yet deadly serious.
Pulling out his backup Glock out from inside his sling where he slipped it earlier in the conversation, he pointed it at Driessen, who he wasn’t finding so nerdy anymore, more like Dr Evil.
“If you think for one minute that I’m going to let Eli David execute me, then you have another thing coming. I’vealready been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the death of Rivkin, and no one can force me to get on a plane and fly to another sovereign state. So, you are leaving now, and I’ll be talking to my attorney.”
Tony suddenly remembered a conversation he heard. Some cops had been talking about a female attorney when he was at the courthouse waiting to give evidence at a trial a few weeks ago. They weren’t very flattering. Apparently, she was one tough broad. The other cop reckoned she was like a Rottweiler, and not a companion dog that is my best friend way, either, but in the sense of a trained attack dog going for the throat way. Someone who the police hated with a passion, and it seemed that didn’t bother her at all.
Listening to them bitch about her, it seemed that this attorney with the unusual name of Malice Hart would ferret out any Ts that they’d neglected to cross or Is they hadn’t dotted in evidence and reports. Theway they spoke of her, she sounded like a heat-seeking missile, able to get dodgy evidence thrown out of court. Withthe way Gibbs ignored search warrants and demanded Tim hack into places that heshouldn’t,to crack a case sans a warrant, the MCRT was lucky that they hadn’t ever come up against her. Tonytried to keep them on the right side of legal during investigations, itwas still an uphill battle on a good day.
He had grinned ruefully as the detectives vented about her latest exploits where someone had forgotten to read their perp his Memoranda Rights, and the judge had tossed the case. Tonyknew Gibbs would want to shoot her if he encountered her, not being a fan of attorneys in general. Thatsaid, he thought Malice Hart might be just the personwhoTonyneeded;someone who’d stand up for him and didn’t intimidate easily.Normallyhe’d bow to Gibbs’ rules about lawyers, but afterthe Boss’ lukewarm professional support during this fiasco, Tony really didn’t give a f*ck what the bastard thought anymore. Hewas done being a doormat!
Tony was trying to decide how to get Driessen to leave, as he only had one functioning arm. Ordinarily, he’d physically throw the ‘Fixer’ out of his apartment on his ass, and he cursed being so vulnerable. Itwas when atrulysickening thought occurred to him that made him throw up violently in one of his pot plants.
What if Gibbs knew what Vance and SECNAV had agreed to let Ziva’s father do? Wouldhe really sell him out?
A couple of years ago, Tony would never have entertained the idea. Noteven for a minute…hell, not evenfora split second. Backthen, he trusted Gibbs to watch his six.
However, that was before Gibbs told them, ‘Sempre Fi.’ as he walked out on them. Itwas right after extolling how McGee was a f*cking great agent while Tony barely rated a miserable‘you’lldo,’ delivered up moments before. Orfour months later, when he walked back into NCIS one day without a hint of warning and took his old desk back as if he’d just stepped out for a coffee. Well, except for him sweeping all of Tony’s files and possessions haphazardly into a box before dumping them back on his old desk that was now Tim’s. Then, every day until the team was split up after Shepard’s death, Gibbs had done everything he could to humiliate him, destroying any vestige of respect that Ziva and McGee might have been harbouring for him in his four months as their former team leader. Andgod damn him, it worked!
They had been even more disrespectful to him than when he was just their senior field agent the first time. Andproving that the fulsome praise he’d heaped on McGee on his way out the door to Mexico had been no aberration, while he was busy systematically tearing Tony down every chancehegot,hewas praising McGee and giving him enoughattaboysthat the rookie agent thought he was the second coming. Nosurprise that it emphasised to the two juniors that they were far superior agents to Tony in every way.
He thought about the assault on him, adding yet another concussion to his medical file when Mike Franks, Gibbs’ old boss, had attacked Tony from behind when he was under protective custody. If he had been guarding a criminal turned informant, Tony would have been on his guard and not turned his back on the former NIS agent but, he was Gibbs’ boss – why would Franks attack a federal agent that was risking his own life to protect him?
That Michael Franks brained him because he wanted to sneak off to murder an old nemesis in cold blood never entered Tony’s how I collected another concussion bingo card, because…why the hell would it? Even worse than Franks’ betrayal was Gibbs’ disloyalty, though. The boss never even kicked Franks’ ass for it, let alone charged him with assaulting a federal agent. But hey, it was just DiNozzo, who cares if he lost a few more brain cells – it wasn’t like he was exactly smart, to begin with, amiright!?
Plus, after he finally came back from the Sea Hawk, the last one to be brought back on the MCRT, how during Domino, Gibbs made it perfectly clear that despite all his skills and experience as an undercover operative, Gibbs didn’t trust him to be read in on the mission. YetAbbywhosucked at keeping things asecrethad been read in on the op. Evenwhen they had a case that involved OSP with NCIS in LA, Gibbs took McGee with him on the case, not the MCRT’s undercover specialist. Itwas akin to having a murder investigation in Silicon Valley and Gibbs taking him along and leaving McGee back in the office.
So… yeah, even before the boss started avoiding him and hovering around Ziva, despite knowing that she had lied to him, both about Rivkin and the dead ICE agent, Tony had somehow becomepersona non grata. Meanwhile, Gibbs treated her like she was some fragile young victim and Tony was some vile murderer. Butthen, Gibbs still treated him like he was the one who killed Jen Shepard.
So maybe Ziva shed tears and demanded that Tony must pay for breaking her heart or some such sh*t. Seeingas Ziva had propositioned him barely four months ago, in the lift after the Domino disaster and months after she started going out with Rivkin, Tony wondered how much she’d truly loved the Mossad operative. WasZiva even capable of such an emotion? Didshe love him, or was it more to do with possessiveness? Shecould be just as territorial as Gibbs!
Gaining control over his wayward stomach (fortunately, he had very little food in it, and he’d mostly puked up bile), Tony ordered his ‘guest’ to stand up. He hoped he could psych Driessen into leaving because the emotionally and physically exhausted agent wasn’t really up to throwing him out on his ass as he wanted to do.
“Get up,” he said angrily. “I’ve heard enough. I’m not getting on a f*cking plane to Israel and handing over my life just so Ziva’s father gets to save face. His Mossad officers are clearly out of control, and that’s on him, not me, and he needs to go. If he won’t leave, then he needs a push all the way into a six-foot-deep hole in the middle of the desert. Either way, not my problem.” He eased the safety off his Glock threateningly.
“Look, Agent DiNozzo. Just hear me out for a bit longer.”
As Tony couldn’t simply bundle him out the door, he compromised. “You have three minutes, but it’s a waste of time, I’mnot changing my mind,” he said with finality.
His mouth tasted foul from his vomit-fest, but there was no way he was leaving the State Department fixer to go into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. WhenDriessen gave him a smug look, it pissed him off. Ifhe had two hands, he would take great pleasure in picking him up and bodily tossing the annoying little prick out of his apartment. Maybehe should have a buddy from Metro PD to escort him out, but Tony had a nasty feeling that the Fixer had something up his sleeve, and he wascertainhe wouldn’t like it.
Glaring at the weedy-looking guy, he said shortly. “Times a-wasting, get on with it!”
“Yes, well, as appealing as your suggestion was about throwing him in a hole somewhere, it’s not so simple.Overthe last fifteen years, Eli has been a very busy boy. Hemadedamnsure that he couldn’t be brushed aside a second time, and he set about amassing a lot of money in gold and precious stones. Hecontinued with what had begun as nothing more than a lucky happenstance, saving Vance’s ass and him owning Eli a solid, to David realising its value and repeating that modus operandi over and over again,” he chuckled mirthlessly, his eyes cold and hard.
Pushing his glasses back up on his nose, he continued, not wanting to waste his three minutes.
“The fact that he’d set up almost all the death threats and assassination attempts, luring out terrorists he’d pay, and sending in Adam Eschel, Ziva, or Ari in to take out ‘the threats’ was never divulged to his grateful benefactors, for obvious reasons. Elihas many such grateful powerful and or wealthy people, like Jenny Shepard and Leon Vance and yes, Israeli politicians, who believe they owe him their lives, too.”
“Nothing there to make me change my mind about quitting, Driessen,” Tony informed him.
“I’m not done yet,” the Driessen told him coldly. “Far from content to rest on his questionable laurels, Eli took a leaf out of the book of men of history he greatly admires, such as J. Edgar Hoover and Sen Joe McCarthy, putting together mammoth files full of kompromat on people who are in positions of power around the globe.”
Tony looked at his watch,murmuring,pointedly, “One point five minutes left.”
He wanted to speed things along. Hewas so fed up with them and all their bullsh*t. He…didn’t…care.
“His benefactors are all well-connected and or politically high-placed people, including SECNAV and Leon Vance,” Driessen said, sounding irritated.
“However, this time, with Rivkin’s death, those who oppose him in Mossad feel like they can use this mess to bring him down. Theywant you to go undercover, pretending to be dead. Oncethey have caught Eli and Ziva David ordering your execution and blaming it on an unfortunate road accident, diverting attention away from yet another of Eli’s proteges’ failures, the anti-David faction will have their own kompromat. They’lluse it to make him stand down and force him to hand over all his files. Inexchange, they’ll let him keep his bullion anddiamonds,and let himgoretire someplace tropical as long as he doesn’t come back.”
Tony shook his head in disbelief. “That’s the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard, but even if it weren’t, I’m not doing it, “ he insisted. “I’m done with doing undercover work, especially for an intelligence agency of a foreign country.”
“It’s not the first time you’ve played a corpse, Agent DiNozzo,” Driessen argued with him.
“Yeah and look how well that turned out. Iwas nearly killed when the FBI chucked me out of the mortuary van. Ina dark-coloured body bag at night. Inthe middle of the beltway,” he scoffed.
“I’ve no desire to do that again and not for some other country – I don’t even trust my own anymore. Besides, don’t you think Eli might notice I wasn’t really dead? I’mnot going on some crazy undercover mission. Itisn’t worth it. Leaveme alone.”
Tony was really hoping Driessen would leavebuthe showed no sign of getting up off Tony’s leather sofa, so Tony awkwardly fished his cell phone out of his pocket, slipping it cumbersomely into his immobilised left hand.
“Last chance before I ask Detective Sergeant Andy Kochifis from Metro to escort you out of the building,” he warned.”
“Look, DiNozzo. Itwould be far easier for everyone if you just agreed to take one for the team here; don’t make me force you into doing it. Thereare a lot of highly motivated people who want to castrate Eli David before he becomes an even bigger obstacle to our ability to fight terrorism. You’veseen firsthand the result of his ordering his people to carry out assignments illegally in the US. Iheard you got into a screaming match last week with Officer David about it, so don’t try to pretend it doesn’t piss you off.”
Tony had been furious about it, thatwas true. Itdidn’t mean he was willing to go to Israel and take part in some crazy-assed mission, though. Andhe said so, firmly.
As if he’d never spoken, Driessen pushed. “We want him gone because he doesn’t play well with others…aside from the current and former directors of a minor federal agency that had their own personal agendas for crawling into bed with him. Evenwith NCIS, wherehehas a spy embedded, he refused to work co-operatively with you guys, hunting down that terrorist cell and their suppliers. AllRivkin was ever interested in was finding information about the terrorist training camp in Africa and executing the members of the terror cell, not our security,” he said irately.
“We, on the other hand, were left scrambling around, not knowing who the rest of the cell was because he deliberately withheld their identities and refused to leave the country. Itcould easily have escalated into a giant clusterf*ck, with the terrorists moving their attack up when they realised they’d been compromised. Wewere lucky it didn’t pan out that way. Butit could have!”.
Tony nodded despite himself. Heflashed back to that conversation he’d had with Ziva in the bullpen when she accused him of being jealous, and he’dtried to make Ziva see that by assisting Rivkin, she was breaking the lawandit hadseriousrepercussions. IfOSP hadn’t already had boots on the ground and had a pro like Callen, able to improvise on the fly when presented with a way to find the rest of the cell via Shakira Zayid, the consequences could have been dire. Instead, the OSP team had been able to locate them and take them down all at onceplustaking at least one of them alive, otherwise, they could have been looking at a catastrophe.
She claimed not to see that what Rivkin was doing was wrong when he killed the cell members and lied to NCIS. Tonyhad been beyond pissed when Ziva admitted that despite Mossad’s illegal activity on US soil, she would not give up his location, at least not to Tony.She’dsaid she would tell Gibbs, but that wasn’t how it worked. Thelaw wasbiggerthan her loyalty to one person; if she couldn’t abide by theirlawsZiva had no business being here, regardless of her loyalty to Gibbs.
Still, he wasn’t going to Israel, hewas done taking one for the team. Gibbsknew that she had not been truthful about Rivkin, lying at the very least, by omissionandshewas complicit in his illegal acts within US territorial borders. Yethe’d been sosolicitousof her feelings…why? Accordingto Driessen, she had used the same ruse on him that her father had come up with, after realising its worth with Vance but going a step further in creating the threat and eradicating it.
The Davids had targeted the MCRT, thanks in part to Ziva’s damned dossiers on them all, trying to kill the team and almost succeeding, except they did kill Cate. Then Eli had ordered Ziva to take out her own brother when he lost control of him. How Ziva and Eli must have laughed their asses off when Gibbs stepped up and decided to protect her by taking credit – it gave her even more control over him, the damn stupid fool.
Even now, Gibbs was still caught up in the whole surrogate daughter who needed his protection and had killed her own brother to save him fantasy. That meant Tony never stood a chance of enlisting his boss’ support earlier on, in his basem*nt. How could a mere agent following Gibbs’ orders, ‘to stay on Rivkin’s six,’ compete with his boss’ paternal desire to save Ziva?
Well, they could all go take a flying leap. AnthonyDiNozzo was done!
Starting to dial Andy, he said, “I’m as angry about Director David’s disregard of US sovereignty as you are, but I’m not going to become a pawn in the power machinations of Vance and Davenport. I’vealready been used by Director Shepard. I’mdone!.
“Not unless we say you are, DiNozzo. Mypeople already have a jamming device running. Yourcell won’t work.”
Angry and frustrated and feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable thanks to his below-par physical condition, he yelled. “You might be able to jam my phone, but you can’t force me to go undercover. Ineed only tip Vance off about the plan, and the whole thing falls apart,” he pointed out with unerring logic.
“I had hoped not to have to use this. Iwas hoping you’d cooperate when you heard that we had a real shot at helping Israel to remove Director David from Mossad permanently and get enough dirt on his sycophants at NCIS to lock them up for good.”
Tony shook his head. “Sorry to disillusion you, but I’m done with NCIS. Besides, who is to say that Director David’s replacement will be any better?”
“Because their Prime Minister agreed to destroy Eli’s kompromat files, but first, he’ll give us anyone who’s been compromised by Eli David. Wedon’t care about private citizens or the dirt he collected on them,but,the politicians, military leaders, judges, and the heads of law and intelligence agencies are fair game, and we want them. So, you see, there is a lot of incentive to make this happen, but we need you to pull this off.”
Tony realised that there was going to be a lot of pressure brought to bear. Hewas expecting them to make threats, perhaps threaten Gibbs’ position at the agency because while the boss was a fan of following rules, they were only ever his own rules, not agency ones or laws. Sothere were no doubt many times when Tim left himself open to being compromised. Heeven figured they could try to threaten Abby or McGee because both were guilty of hacking into far too many government, military, and intelligence databases.
Sooner or later, their luck would run out, and as much as Tony loved Abby, he hadn’t ever asked the forensic scientist to hack for him. McGeeand Gibbs – he would take a bullet for them out in the field, but they routinely chose to step over the line when it came to hacking. Hewas damned if the powers that be were going to make him feel guilty for other people’s crimes to the point where he’d fly to Israel. Notwhen the Davids wanted him dead, and Vance and the SECNAVwere willing togo along with his demands if it earned them brownie points with Eli.
So, it came clean out of the blue, when Driessen’s tone took on a particularly menacing edge as he said. “September the 25th 2007. Your Mustang was blown up, not too far from University Hospital, where Dr Jeanne Benoit worked. Such a tragedy for such a admirable piece of engineering to have been destroyed by the CIA when they sanctioned the beautiful Dr Benoit’s death to try to regain control of their asset Rene Benoit and to warn Jenny Shepard to back off. Of course, they thought you were acceptable collateral damage, along with your car,” he said conversationally.
Tony glared at him. Thewhole incident with Trent Kort blowing up his Mustang and nearly killing them both, even after almost two years, was still a sore topic with Tony. Hedid not appreciate being used to warn Shepardoff,or that Kort used Jeanne like that. Shewas completely innocent, having no clue what her father did for a living – she thought he was just an average businessman. ButJeanne was not simply a mark in an undercover operation; Tony had fallen head over heels for her, and although she wanted nothing more to do with him, he still loved her. Hewas not pleased that Driessen had brought up their close call with the Angel of Death.
Giving Tony a feral, sharklike grin, the State Department fixer told him, “In all the furore over Rene Benoit disappearing after your car exploded, no one ever noticed that the sanction to kill you and Jeanne was never actually rescinded. After eighteen months, it is not all that likely that anyone would realise that or think to see that it was carried out, but it also would be prudent not to make assumptions that she and you are safe,” Driessen mused, far from subtly.
“Especially if Agent Kort were to find out it wasn’t rescinded. Hehas a reputation for being quite a vindictive bastard, and afterall, you did break his nose when you punched him,” he said with a trace of laughter, even as Tony roared in fury and launched himself at Driessen, his right fist connecting painfully with the man’s jaw.
“Leave Dr Benoit alone,” Tony spat at him furiously, “or I’ll make you regret it. Shedidn’t do anything wrong, aside from having the misfortune to have a sh*tty sperm donor,” he threatened the fixer viciously.
She might hate Tony for his role in the demise of her idyllic life,and,not without reason, but he would give his life to protect hers if necessary. Herealised he had little to no choice but to do what these people wanted. Jeanneand, ultimately, himself were just pawns in this chess game they were engaged in, trying to trap Eli David and gain control over his Kompromat.
Shooting him a filthy, Driessen glared at him furiously. “If I had you charged with treason, you’d end up somewhere like Gitmo or worse and be in no position to do anything if I asked Kort to do me a favour.”
“Treason? Thinkyou’re confusing me with Leon Vance or Davenport, he jeered.
“No. Prettysure it was treason when you were serving as Agent Afloat aboard the aircraft carrier and used the secure naval communication room on the USS Sea Hawk to illegally access the Pentagon system containing highly classified intel. Yousearched for and downloaded a file.”
Tony felt his stomach drop. Forf*ck’s sake, he seriously couldn’t believe this was coming back to bite him on the ass now! Damn, McGee and Leon Vance, for their f*cking incompetence!
That useless waste of space Director Vance had broken up the MCRT after Shepard’s dramatic exit, sending McGee to the cyber-crimes basem*nt where Tim was busy playing pretend-boss to the other geeks, constantly genuflecting to him that had left him with his head so far up his ass, admiring the view for four frigging months. That’swhen he wasn’t f*cking around trying to crack the encryption key on Petty Officer Vargas’ computer, of course. Buthey, it wasn’t like it was urgent or anything. He’dget to it eventually.
One hundred and twenty-eight days. Vance had permitted McGee waste FOUR crucial months trying to work out what classified intel Vargas had downloaded. That four mouths of staying silent to protect their worthless careers could have had absolutely devastating effects on the security of their naval warships, not to mention an ally’s national security (in this case, Israel), and that was unacceptable. For all Vance knew, the US and Israel (or any other ally since they had no clue what information was stolen) could easily have been compromised and targeted for a major terrorist attack. But hey, it wasn’t as if the new director was forcing McGee to work double shifts for months without any days off or helping out with the encryption since Leon was supposed to be such a damned hotshot at all things cyber.
Then 130 days after being sent down to the basem*nt, McGee suddenly pulls his head out of his ass, coming up with the brilliant idea of a much faster and much easier way to find out what the encrypted file is than decrypting it. That’saside from the correct procedure of informing the JCS at the Pentagon that there’d been a breach in security and a file had been unloaded, of course. Butno, if they’d come clean about the theft, heads would have rolled – most likely SECNAVs and he would have dragged Vance along for the ride, too. Soinstead, they had to find out what was taken but on the down low to save their worthless skins.
All they needed to do was access the Pentagon’s system and search for the file using the f*cking file hash file number, simple as a Google search, which even the rawest cyber geek should have thought of months ago. Notto mention, Leon Vance was supposed to be practically on the same level of genius as McGee when it came to all things cyber. Whythe f*ck hadn’t the director thought ofit,if he was too chicken-sh*t to report the critical security breach to thePentagon,and decided to sit on that intel for 130 days?
Which begged the question, exactly how good were either of the so-called computer geniuses? Aboutas useful as tit* on a snake as Sergeant Harry Shipley, Tony’s first training officer in Peoria, was fond of telling him when describing the bureaucrats that made them fill out everything in triplicate.
By the time McGee received his epiphany some four months later, Gibbs had pointed out that going through appropriatechannels took too long. Clearly, it was something that Vance must have known already, and if he didn’t, then he had the IQ of a cactus and shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the big chair.
Meanwhile that cowardly pile of steaming excrement, also known as Director Vance, opted to tell them he never had that conversation with them, Gibbs and McGee saw nothing wrong with asking Tony to get their answers. Who cared if he was doing something illegal‽
Their new director never lost any sleep over the fact that the file had been compromised for five months before Tony identifiedit,because, in addition to the four wasted months spent failing to decrypt it, Vance was already sitting on the intel for a further month. Thatwas before he split up the team when PO Vargashad firstadmitted he stole it, and then he went dark.
He went dark because he was DEAD!
Tony wondered, not for the first time, just how long Vance would have been willing to let McGee and his cyber geeks try to decrypt a file that could have had catastrophic consequences if the intel had been breached. Sixmonths? Ayear?
They only had Vargas’ word that he hadn’t passed it on to the person who had blackmailed him into stealing it. Andeven if he was telling the truth, how could SECNAV and Vance be certain that Vargas’ blackmailer hadn’t found another chump to steal it for him?
The reality was that they had no f*cking clue! Theycould have been twiddling their thumbs while the US and Israel ended up facing a devastating attack.
The scary thing was if Vargas had paid for that trailer where he died and lay there, undiscovered for eight or twelve months instead of just four, Gibbs’ so-called B Team might never have been called in and brought the whole mess to a head. The only reason he was found after four months was when the manager at the trailer park went to collect the rent because he didn’t show up to pay.
BECAUSE HE WAS DEAD!
Vance hadn’t just made complete balls up of the encryption file debacle.He’ddisbanded themajorcase response team, which had the best closure rate, not just in NCIS but all of their sister alphabets, too.Allto put the three agentshe’dnarrowed down his suspicions of being theirmole,onto Gibbs’ new team. Thenhecompounded the comedy of errors by assigning them to the MCRT withoutthe benefit ofa heads-up to the team leader about his suspicions.
Woah, what a brilliant strategy. PureGenius…not!
Leon’s lame-ass excuse when Gibbs had asked him after Vargas turned up dead if he was ever planning to tell him about his real reason for giving him the new team had been one helluva doozy. Vancetold him that he never told Gibbs because he didn’t have any proof (which is what investigators did, getproofof a crime), and, besides, he thought that one day, Gibbs’ gut would miraculously know that one of them was a mole.
How f*cking absurd was that, as far as dumbass reasons go? Who knew that the director of a federal law enforcement agency used magical thinking that would have done a six-year-old kid proud s a method to solve a national security threat‽
Talk about clutching at straws!
Seriously,how long would Vance and Davenport have been willing towait,for Gibbs’ infamous gut to catch the clue bus?
How long would they have been willing to wait for McGee to decrypt Vargas’ files?
How stupid or lacking in integrity could Vance be?
So f*cking-what if he didn’t have any evidence? Thatwas what investigations were for – to find damned evidence.
If Gibbs and Tony, along with McGee, Ziva and Abby, had investigatedthe information that Vance hadon Vargas, he wasdamnedsure that it wouldn’t have taken 130 days to find out that Domino had been compromised.PerhapsAgent Langer would still have been alive, and Michelle’s daughter Amanda wouldn’t have spent all those months held captive.
If the MCRT had been tracking Vargas, there was a pretty good chance they would have found him. And if they did it was likely that they’d have realised straight away that Vargas had been killed by a female, who was not a practiced killer. Tony or Ducky (with their profiling skills) would have theorised that the individual who had killed Vargas was being blackmailed because, unlike a trained assassin, they had baulked at killing a man who was sleeping – hence the pillow used to disassociate themselves from the murder.
If the new director had let them do what they did best, investigate a major crime, it was dollars to doughnuts that it wouldn’t have taken five months to find out that the stolen file was Domino. AndTony wouldn’t be up sh*t creek through no fault of his own.
Knowing that thanks to Vance and Davenport’s laughable Mole Hunt, he had no chance of getting out of this one, he capitulated because what other choice did he have?
Spend years in Gitmo if he wasn’t sentenced to death, wondering if the CIA (aka Trent Kort) had decided to carry out the already sanctioned hit on Jeanne just because he could. Tony felt sickened by the realisation that for all their lip service to how Eli David’s kompromat files were a terrible threat to national security, these hypocrites wanting him to help Mossad bring down Director David were quite prepared to blackmail him. To force him to risk his own neck to take down Mossad’s megalomaniac director. What a pack of f*cking hypocrites.
When Tony was dangerously angry, rather than yelling and throwing tantrums or shooting bodies like Gibbs, he just got deadly quiet and extremely dangerous. Heglared at Driessen and said, “And, pray tell, Mr Fix-it, how are you or any of the people behind this plan any better to Eli with his kompromat files?.”
The Fixer gave him a smirk of victory before shrugging unrepentantly. “What can I say? Sometimes, when the cause is righteous, the means must be brutal to get the job done,” he replied piously, the light of zealotry burning fiercely in his eyes for a millisecond.
Tony felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach by the realisation that this guy had never been merely some nerdy bureaucrat. Thisman was dangerous. Driessenwas ruthless and didn’t care about the cost to Jeanne or Tony. Heonly cared that he achieved his goal.
“Individual lives sometimes need to be sacrificed to ensure the defeat of evil,” he had the nerve to tell Tony pompously.
How dare a bureaucrat lecture to a former cop and federal agent about sacrifice. Tony had made it his life’s work to defend and protect others, frequently putting his own life at risk to do so. People like Driessen made him sick; his philosophy on the necessity of collateral damage never extended to those of his ilk. DiNozzo was willing to bet that the Fixer never enlisted in the military either.
Clenching his jaw, Tony listened as the vile fixer continued his argument, “Eli David has no interest in playing well with others.Hewants to control the war,andhewill continue to insist on doing it his way.Whathappens in LA and DC with the next Kidon assassin that he sends here illegally, which is why the Israelis finally figured out how to stop him. Wemust make sure someone more moderate is the Director of Mossad.”
Tony didn’t see a whole difference between Eli, Vance, SECNAV and Driessen and the people he worked for (presumably in the State Department), along with others in positions of power.Hewasn’t sure if Driessen’s cabal went right to the top, but he didn’t trust themany more than he didVance or Davenport.Heknewthat hewas boxed in, just assurelyas he had been in that metal shipping crate on the docks with millions of dollars in fake US dollars and one pissed-off Ziva David. Butif forced to go undercover for Mossad in this stupendously stupid scheme, hewas going toensure he had someone who was watching his sixandit sure as hell wasn’t Gibbs.
“You can keep telling yourselves you’re righteous and doing what is needed, Driessen, but you’re just as amoral as Director David. Idon’t trust you as far as I can throw you, and we’ve already established that I’mnot capableof throwing anyone. Iconcede that I have no choice but to do what you want, but only if I get some assurancesand,I also have several demands. Theyare non-negotiable.”
“You aren’t in any position to bargain, DiNozzo,” Driessen said dryly, his already thin lips slightly more tense. Atell that he was pissed off that Tony hadn’t capitulated already.
Tony chuckled.Driessenmight be a fixer, but clearly,Driessenunderestimated Tony, liketoomany others before him.
“I’m going to let you in on a guilty secret of mine, Gerrit,” he said conversationally. “As a way to destress, I’ve been known to watch the odd Sci-Fi show sometimes. Atthemomentit’s Stargate Atlantis, although the first one was pretty good escapismtoowhen Ijustneed to forget about the sh*t day I’ve had.”
He could see that Driessen had no clue what he was on about, which was lucky.
“And there’s this one episode where the Atlantis team has been caught and held hostage by the people on the planet because the bad guys are after one of the team. His name is Ronon Dex. He’s kinda like aone-mandeath squad when it comes to killing the evil Wraith,whoFYIare life-sucking alien creatures who view humans as nothing but a food source. Yaknow, they’re kinda like Eli, Vance, Davenport and yourself and your bosses,” he mused.
Tony was being intentionally provocative, deliberately trying to piss Driessen off and succeeding. Despitethe seriousness of the situation that he found himself in, he could still annoy the crap out of people.
“See, the last time Ronan was on that planet, he was running from the Wraith. Manyof the people there were slaughtered because Dex was desperate enough and smart enough to evade his tormenters, who had turned him into an object of prey for their own sick enjoyment. Theindigenous residents were slaughtered for giving him refuge; the Wraith promised the remainder of the locals that the next time Ronon visited their world if they betrayed him, the Wraith would allow the people to live unscathed.”
Tony could tell by the way Driessen was regarding him that he was not a fan of the show, nor was hean aficionadoof the Sci-Fi genre.Hewould have been more concerned about where this was going if he was.
“Well, I’m sure that was a fine expenditure of your downtime, DiNozzo, but I’m not sure how it applies here,” he said with the merest hint of scorn.
Despite what was at stake, Tony couldn’t help thrilling just a little at his ability to make his foes underestimate him. Hereckoned it amounted to being a secret power at times. LikeX-ray vision or sticking to walls.
“It’s relevant because Ronon was between a rock and a hard place. Heknew what the Wraith would do to him once they caught him again, but he also felt guilty that his presence in their world had brought about the death of hundreds of innocent lives. Hecould have easily escaped because he was aone-mankilling machine, but he knew that more innocent people in this world would be slaughtered.
So he knew he had no choice. Buthe also had no intention of allowing his friends to be taken prisoner by the Wraith as well as himself, so he demanded that their capturers let them go or else he would kill himself,” Tony said, catching Driessencompletelyby surprise and redirecting his gun which had been hanging loosely by his side in his uninjured hand and placing it under his chin, the muzzle aimed to pass through his brain.
“Checkmate, Driessen. Unless I get my safeguards and you agree to my demands, I’ll kill myself and you, MrFix-it-guywill be forever known as Mr f*ck-up-guy.Yourchoice,” he told him, he said, letting the habitual mask of easy-going goofball disappear to reveal the deep well of anger that he usually kept firmly under wraps.
Swallowing hard, Driessen tried bluffing. “You wouldn’t. Ifyou kill yourself, then I’ll hurt Benoit, I’llmake sure she is locked up for her father’s arms dealing. I’ma fixerandIcan easily fabricate evidence that she was a knowing part of Rene’s enterprise. She’llspend the rest of her life in Gitmo,” he promised.
“And that’s why I’ll never, ever trust you, Mr f*ck-up-guy. Ihave nothing to lose because you cannot be trusted, and you just proved it to me with your threat. Theonly way to ensure that you don’t harm Jeanne or hermother,or try to use me again the next time something comesup,is for me to bargain for some ironclad guarantees to be put in place. UnlessI have those guarantees, then I might as well die by my own hand because you would do or say anything to get your way,” he said with steely determination and righteous fury.
Tony grinned mirthlessly at the dweebish-looking fix-it guy.
“Bottom line, I know your type, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Jeanne would never be safe, regardless ofany promises you make.QED, I have nothing to lose,butI haveeverything to gain because, like Ronon Dex on Atlantis, I have my life to bargain with.Oh, and by the way, you have 45 minutes to get a deal in placeoryour piece-of-sh*t bosses are going to be very unhappy with you. Tick-tock, times a wasting Mr f*ck-up,” Tony taunted him, using his considerable prowess at pissing people off to maximum effect.
It lookscouldkill, Tony knew he would be a pile of ashes right now, but Driessen also hada lotmore to lose than Tonydid,after the fallout from Rivkin and Leon Vance’s decision to accede to the Mossad director’s demands. AFixer was only as good as his latest fix, and he’d underestimated DiNozzo, allowing himself to be profiled by one of the best undercover operatives in the business. Driessenhad too much to lose, and Tony had no reason to trust him.
Sighing, he conceded, “What are your demands?”
If Driessen expected Tony to crow or leap into the air in a juvenile exhibition of petty conquest at getting the upper hand, thenhe was disappointed. Hisglarestonyand bleak, Tony outlined his list of requirements before ending with the admonishment, “And you have forty-two minutes left.”
Driessen felt like someone had delivered a kick to his nads. “That’s impossible. Itcan’t be done,” he declared as Tony’s eyes took on adullflat qualityandhe panicked.
“Wait, I’m not refusing. I’mjust saying that it isn’t possible to give you everything you want in forty minutes.”
Shooting him a look that could strip paint,but thenTony did work with Leroy Jethro Gibbs, henodded barely. Hisgun was still purposefully placed under his chin. “Fine, I’ll give you 41 minutes to ensure that condition number 3 is carried out and let you figure out some way to delay that f*cking flight to Tel Aviv so that you can meet my conditions. I’mnot getting on that plane unless you do.”
He noted with bitter satisfaction that Driessen immediately began to sweat. Servethe stupid f*cker right, he thought, as Gerrysquawked, “But that’s impossible. Youknow how bad DC traffic is.”
“Then use some ingenuity, for pity’s sakeMrFix-it,” Tony mocked. “Four blocks south of my building, there is a heliport atop the Esprit de liberté office tower.”
“But he may not even be available to come,” Driessen protested.
“You’d better hope for yoursake,that isn’t the case,” Tony scowled.
“Think you mean, your sake,” Driessen corrected him snappily.
“No. Prettysure I meant – you. Yourbosses are going be extremely pissed off with you if I’m dead,” he said, with an exaggerated shudder. “See, I may not know much about being a Fix-it-guy, working for the movers and shakers, but I do know that you are only as successful as your last success, Gerrit,” he said conversationally.
Looking at him appraisingly, he said, “It’s a bit like being a professional athlete. Whenyou’re winning games for the team, you’re feted and ego-strokedandeveryone wants your autograph, but as soon as you stop winning, no want wants to give you time of day. I’mthinking as a fixer with all those secrets, once you stop…ya know…fixing sh*t, bosses might get antsy and decide you know too much. Thatyou’re too much of a liability to have around anymore.”
As Driessen started scrolling manically through his Blackberry, Tony looked athim,musingly.
Desperate to psyche the asshole out, he said, “Hope your last will and testament is up to date, Man. Iknow mine is. Beinga federal agent, you can never be too certain when you might stop breathing.”
Gibbs was relieved to finally put boots on the ground, twelve weary hours after they took off from DC. Henormallyenjoyed military flights, but this had been a damn uncomfortable one. Vancealternated between glowering at DiNozzo and acting smug, which wasjust plaindisturbing. And Ziva…Ziva was just a giant ball of anger and pain.
Jethro did his best to comfort her, but she was like a wounded bull, dangerous and incredibly volatile, while DiNozzo… well, from outward appearances, he looked calm, unconcerned. YetGibbs had worked with the man for eight years, less the four months when he was down in Mexico and four more after he was assigned as an agent afloat aboard the USS Ronald Reagan and the Sea Hawk. Jethroknew DiNozzo was going to extreme lengths to appear unruffled and pain-free.
Jethro also knew that he had to be hurting – he had been pretty beaten up in his encounter with Officer Rivkin barely 36 hours before, but stubborn as always,hadrefused to take anything for the pain. Ofcourse, he hadn’t asked him how he was doing, not wanting to seem to be siding with him and making Ziva even more furious than she already was.Healso knew that DiNozzo wouldn’t want to be seen rambling about his fingers finging; appearances mattered greatly to the agent. Hewas all about smoke and mirrors. Gibbsdecided the best course was to ignore DiNozzo so Leon and Ziva didn’t become more pissed than they already were. Thelast thing they needed was a midair brawl.
Now they were on the ground, he hoped cooler heads would prevail. Ashe watched DiNozzo climbing into the SUV with officer Amit Hadar, who requested Tony’s presence on the ride back to Mossad headquarters, Gibbs noted that his second in command shot him an emotion-charged look he couldn’tdecipher,right before the SUV drove away. Seeingthe look of vicious and vindictive triumph exchanged by Ziva and Leon as the vehicle disappeared into the arid haze of the desert, Jethro’s infamous gut lurched violently. Therealisation hit him as he identified the emotion on DiNozzo’s face before he disappeared with Hadar. Ithad been disappointment and betrayal, and it was directed at Gibbs.
With a sick feeling in his gut, he turned to the director and said, “I am going to get my agent back again in one piece, aren’t I, Leon?”
Looking incredibly smug, the NCIS director chuckled spitefully. “Come now, Gibbs. Surely, you can’t possibly be so naïve that you expect DiNozzo would ever leave Israel alive, did you? I told you that DiNozzo had to take one for the team,” he retorted in amusem*nt. “Why do you suppose SECNAV ordered you to follow my lead. No one can be that dense.”
“Dragging him here without legal representation, especially after Internal Affairs cleared him, was illegal and a bastard act,” he replied, furious at being so blind. “ I never thought you’d be prepared to do something even worse, Leon.”
“This damaged the relations between our two nations. Mossadhas not only lostan extremely valuableresource in Officer Rivkin but also a highly trained operative.Hewas to embark upon a mission of critical importance forthe national security of Israel.Withhim gone, they must find a replacement, which won’t be easy. Mossad demanded retribution for Rivkin, and SECNAV agreed.”
“Are you f*cking nuts, Leon?” Gibbs spat out angrily. “Rivkin killed one federal agent, and he almost killed DiNozzo, too. Itwas sheer luck that he survived, that and Rivkin was loaded,” he said mockingly. “It took place on US soil; that so-called valuable lunatic was assassinating terrorists illegally, and Mossad has the f*cking gall to demand retribution. Whatabout Agent Sherman; he had a wife and a kid.”
For a moment or two, Leon had the grace to look uncomfortable before saying, “Yes, well, unfortunately, Mossad is assisting us with an intelligence operationthat isvital to our agency. Weneedthem,more than they need us, and, bottom line, they need to save face. AgentSherman is an unfortunate casualty of the war on terror.”
“You mean Eli needs to save face,” Gibbssnarled,at his superior dangerously.
“Well, it was an embarrassment, an ex-hick cop getting the best of a highly trained Kidon assassin,” Leon sneered as Ziva hissed with rage at Mossad being disparaged. “Eli has detractors just waiting for him to slip up, and we need his help,” the director said candidly.
At this point, the enraged Mossad liaison weighed in on their conversation.
“Bah! Enough! He deserves to forfeit his life, and there is nothing more to be said. It is my father’s and my right to demand that DiNozzo pay retribution for murdering Michael. He went to my apartment spoiling for a fight with Michael because he was insanely jealous.”
Gibbs looked at Ziva, suddenly experiencing an extremely unpleasant epiphany. Shewas mad with grief and completely irrational. Shewas unreachable, so he appealed to Vance, who, although pissed, still seemed lucid…somewhat.
“And after dragging DiNozzo here illegally without benefit legal representation, which is his right, if he is executed without a trial, it will spark another international incident. NoNatSec op, no matter how critical, is more important than the damage it will do to our relationships. Thepoliticians who are anti-Israeli will use it to stir up hate and division and try to stop government funding of Israel. Thisis sheer madness,” he argued desperately. “Call it off, Leon.”
Ziva became more and more irate. “I said enough! Doyou think that we are babes in the forest, Gibbs? Wewill make an announcement that while here in Tel Aviv attending the funeral of Officer Rivkin, Special Agent DiNozzo was the victim of a tragic car accident. Thosewho matter will know the truth; that he died because he murdered Michael. Theywill know that under my father’s leadership, no one crosses us and gets away with it.”
“Do not do this, Ziva! You’regrieving right now, but I promise you, if you do this, you’ll regret it. Itwill eat you up inside,” Gibbs tried to reach the Israeli Mossad officer he thought of as his daughter. “Please, I’m asking you to stop this.”
“What will devour me is that buffoon, that clown stole my childhood friend from me, who I loved. Allbecause he was jealous that Rivkin and I were lovers.” she snarled at him.
While he was tempted to tell her that DiNozzo had been acting under his instructions in continuing to look for answers to Tabal’s highly questionable suicide, something stopped him. He tried to convince himself that it was the light of madness he saw in her eyes that made him realise she was in a truly, dark place right now. Having been there himself, he recognised the futility of trying to reach out to her or reason with her. Part of him, what was left of his integrity, was shouting that the real reason he remained silent was the fear she might blame him too, and he didn’t want to piss her off. Ruthlessly, Gibbs stomped on that sliver of insight, mentally arguing that self-preservation was not selfish. In fact, he needed to survive to stop this sheer madness.
Turning back to Vance, he decided to use the man’s AchillesHeel,to make him stop this lunacy.
“If you do this, Leon,” he said conversationally, hoping to convey that he was back in the driver’s seat, “I will destroy you. You’ll be lucky to get a job as a dog catcher, and even then, I’ll haunt your ass every day. I’ll call in every damned marker, and I have a f*ckton of them… just so ya know. You and SECNAV will wish you’d never messed with me and mine. “
Vance actually dared to laugh in his face. WasLeon completely insane?
Did he really not know how deadly Gibbs could be? Not realise just how many bodies Jethro would dig up to ensure he and Davenport were destroyed?
“Oh, I don’t think so, Gibbs,” Vance drawled, sounding greatly amused, which infuriated Jethro even moreinfuriated but paradoxically made him more afraid for DiNozzo.
“Did you not hear me when Isaid,that the powers that be were all on board with this solution to Eli’s troubles? Thisgoes much, much higher up than you could ever imagine…”
Ziva’s phone ringing interrupted the two males posturing, and they glared at each other like two apex predators, wanting to rip each other’s throats out. Instead, they listened to Ziva speaking tersely in Hebrew. Shehung up and looked across at Vance.
“It is done. Hadar terminated him with an overdose of insulin. When we return to the city, we will stage the car accident so the jubes will think this is the tragic death of an American. The wrong place at the wrong time. Although the intelligence community will know the truth – that one does not get away with crossing the David family and live to tell the fable,” she said, smiling eerily, as Gibbs wondered if he’d even really known her.
What had he done?
“I will not be a party to this,” he snarled, a red haze ofanger,materialisingin front ofhis eyes, and he recognised the signs.Hewas about to turn feral. “Even here in Israel, I have contacts. Youwill regret this execution,” he threatened them both viciously.
While it was not a complete fabrication, he knew he would need to watch out that he didn’t become a victim of an unfortunate accident. UnlikeDiNozzo, who would not have been expecting to be executed, he would keep his head on a constant swivel, and not just while he was here in Israel. But mostly, he was mouthing off because he didn’t want to face the unbearable truth that Mossad had murdered DiNozzo in cold blood. Retribution, for him killing one of theirown,in self-defence. Jethrodidn’t want to think that the agent he recruited from Baltimore eight years ago was dead because DiNozzo did his job too well and survived a Kidon-killer.
But,not for long!
He was dead because Jethro told him that he needed to suck it up and take one for the team when DiNozzo came to him privately to express reservations about getting on the plane. Jethro could not bear to think about the last interaction he had with Anthony DiNozzo alive before those bastards killed him. Yes, there had been fear, genuine fear which he rarely ever displayed; it was mixed in with defeat, and disappointment in Gibbs, who had been his mentor. Gibbs had used his position of trust, his admiration for Gibbs’ and the man’s affection for him to guilt DiNozzo into getting on board that damned flight to Tel Aviv when he should have called a lawyer for him and got him sound legal advice, as was his entitlement.
Jethro had manipulated him.
Now. Tony. Was. Dead!
It was easier to fuel his anger – a primitive and visceral emotion that cameeasilyto Gibbs. Froma small, angry boy to a rebellious teen who enlisted in the Corps – he became a husband and father, then a widower and heartbroken grieving parentbut, honestly, Jethro had always been angry at the world. Hewas always in strife for letting that anger rule him. Evennow in his fifties, as an SSA and team leader of the MCRT, his unbridled fits of fury were legend within the alphabet agencies and his own bullpen. Hefelt that losing Shannon and Kelly entitled him to unleash his considerable demons on an unsuspecting world. Sohe had no difficulty feeding his ever-simmering wrath. Itdistracted Gibbs from facing his own culpability in the murder of Anthony DiNozzo.
What a f*cking fool he’d been!
Storming off, he headed back aboard the C-130, having nowhere else to retreat to since they were currently on an Israeli military base, and he wouldn’t be permitted to leave unaccompanied. Tryingto figure out how to take every damned person down who had made him complicit in DiNozzo’s execution, he sank down on the bench seat. Hefelt sickened and wondered how to contact the press. Gibbswas notnormallyon cordial terms with that pack of vermin. Pullingout his phone, thinking to call McGee, Gibbs was too angry to notice that he’d been followed back into the plane.
“If you were thinking of calling anyone Gibbs, I wouldn’t try it. Itwould be simple to make it look like you were also in Agent DiNozzo’s car when it exploded.”
“You think you can threaten me, Leon. You know that I know where all the bodies are buried,” he retaliated. Years before, he’d left all of the files on the power brokers in power with several different law firms, with unequivocal instructions to release the files in the event of his unexpected death. Since he’d never hidden his dislike of lawyers, he was pretty sure they would never anticipate that he had entrusted precious intel to them.
“On the contrary, Gibbs. You underestimate me,” Vance taunted him. “I know where all your bodies are buried. You really don’t think I know about Pedro Hernandez? No statute of limitations for murder one, as you well know,” he retorted, watching Gibbs pale in shock before anger overcame his surprise, as his face reddened in fury.
“If I have to go to jail or even die to take you down, Leon, then I’ll do it gladly. You’rea disgrace to NCIS and the oath you swore,” Gibbs snarled, ready to throttle the man and damn the consequences. Howthe f*ck could he be so blind, and not just with Vance and his naked ambition. Butalso not seeing the monster who was therealZiva David, not the wounded girl who had killed her own brother to save his life.
He could practically hear DiNozzo…Tony snarking at him cynically.‘I told ya so when she first started. Zeeevahhad no place on a premier investigative team. Whatthe hell were you thinkingBoss. Ifshe’d kill her own kin for a perfect stranger like you, then how could she be trusted to watch oursixes,since we weren’t even her family. IfDaddy Dearest ordered her to take out any one of us, why the f*ck wouldn’t she obey him, Gibbs?’
Sneering at him, the director countered furiously, “I believe you would, which is pretty damned hypocritical of you since you killed Hernandez for revenge, you bastard, but if you do, then I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. I’ll see that repugnant, bigoted old dinosaur of an NIS special agent, Mike Franks is dragged stateside again if I have to kidnap him myself, so he’s tried on conspiracy to commit murder charges. He’s nothing more than a chain-smoking old drunkard who wouldn’t last long in prison if you know what I mean…”
“You are a filthy f*cking prick, Leon” Gibbs yelled at him.
“…plus, there is the unfortunate matter of the former Lieutenant Lara Macy, now Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles OSP. I’llmake sure she is charged with obstruction of justice for burying evidence that would have seen you sentenced to life imprisonment in Fort Leavenworth or facing a firing squad, Gunny. Stupid, idealistic little lieutenant, she felt sorry for your loss, and now she’ll get acquainted with Fort Leavenworth, too. Anotherlife was wasted because you, like Ziva, demanded retribution. Yet, you dare to judge her and her father for wanting the same closure,” he chuckled spitefully, his dark, almost black eyes boring into Gibbs judgementally.
He chuckled as Gibbs stared at him through hate-filled lives.“Between you, me, and the gate post, Gibbs, I was never in favour of having Ziva at NCIS as a Mossad liaison, ya know.Givinga foreign national from a counterintelligence and intelligence agency such as Mossad a top-secret security clearance at NCIS was not one of Jennifer Shepard’s shining moments. Nosurprise that Ziva did what all good spies do…she spied,” he taunted his nemesis unmercifully.
“I managed to get rid of Ms David when I took over as director, and I did it without ruffling Eli’s feathers. Noneof this would have been necessary, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone. Youinsisted I bring her back so she could be on your team.Whathas happened is on your head, not mine,” he told the stricken former Marinecruelly.
Vance left unsaid about him doing an end run around Leon and dragging DiNozzo back to DC on the flimsy excuse that he’d escorted his prisoner back to NCIS. So, f*cking transparent and manipulative, and if he hadn’t been trying to one-up his newboss, Anthony DiNozzo would still be an agent afloat right now. Goingcrazy with boredom and climbing the walls, but he’d be alive!
Yet it seemed that the director wasn’t done rubbing salt into Gibbs’ open wounds.Hesaid, “Of course, if you are dumb enough to cross me and SECNAV, then I’ll have no further use for Agent McGee, either.SoI’ll drag him down, too.”
“You’d go so far as to sacrifice McGee, Leon,” Gibbs protested faintly. “He’s your golden boy – the model agent for how you want all future NCIS agents to be.”
Leon smirked, “That’s true, but if I’m going down, to be honest, I don’t really care about what happens to McGee. Mypatronage of him was always about the agent and what he represents, not about him personally,” he confided nastily.
“Although Idoadmire his skills, I find his personality leaves much to be desired. Frankly, I find him smug and entitled. Unlikepeople like me who’ve had to overcome systemic poverty and rampant racism to get where I am, McGee came from the elitist class. Hiseducation was paid for by his parents, and yetTim’s got a massive chip on his shoulder because some of his imbecile peers gave him a hard time for being smart,” he said mockingly.
“He’s a whiny little bitch, who doesn’t realise how lucky he hadit,growing up,” he said, pulling out an ever-present toothpick to chew on.
Gibbs desperately wanted to punch it straight down the ambitious smarmy politicking prick’s throat and watch him choke on the damned thing. Herestrained himself, just barely.
“You should know that our Mossad liaison officer has helpedin keepingus apprised of all of the illegal hacking that you have McGee do for you, plus she recorded every time you or your team failed to follow regs or broke the law. Iknow about the cases where you turned a blind eye to murderers, playing judge, jury and even executioner.” Seeing Gibbs’ refusal to believe that Ziva would rat him out, heproceeded to provehim wrong.
“You couldn’t prove that Caesar Bernal killed Miguel Sosa and his three top LVM henchmen, plus two Marines, so you invited the other LVM gangb*ngers into NCIS and presented them with the evidence of the case, knowing they would kill Caesar Bernal for you. Executionvia proxy! Weknow you ordered McGee to get you warrants by having Ziva fabricate evidence that the LVM street gang had ties to Al Qaeda, and sothe judge believed they were terrorists. Youknewthat youdidn’t have enough evidence to get warrants otherwise, and Jenny Shepard looked the other way while you did it.”
“Then you turned a blind eye when Mike Frank executed Arkady Kobach after Franks assaulted a federal officer,who,also happened to be your senior field agent. Youalso looked the otherway,when Franks executed the men who killed his son and ignored the two illegal aliens who were smuggled in the USA, one who was his granddaughter. Plus, there was the grieving father and cleric, Khalid Mohammed Bakr – he executed a Muslim jihadist recruiter who killed Khalid’s son, Corporal Abdul Bakrforresisting his efforts to radicalise him. Youshut down any investigation into who had killed the recruiter, even though Ziva recognised his son’s prayer beads, which had been released into his father’s custody. Maybeyou should ask yourself why the f*ck wouldn’t Ziva see your tacit agreement with those retribution killings and demand her own when DiNozzo killed her lover and childhood friend,” he lectured angrily.
“Oh, and I reckon that the rest of your sycophants, Dr Sciuto, Dr Mallard and his necrophiliac women’s shoe-wearing autopsy aide, Jimmy Palmer, won’t get off unscathed either. Noone will believe they didn’t know what you were upto,every time your team broke the law. Afterall, as Sciuto is so fond of reminding everyone, you are just one big happy family.”
“You’re willing to destroy the careers of McGee, Abby, Duck and Palmer, who are blameless, Leon, and ruin countless other lives of people they’ve saved?” Gibbs demanded, enraged.
“Yes, God Damn It! Ifyou destroy me and my family, then I won’t give a sh*t about what happens to NCIS. Frankly, I think the whole pissant agency needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt. IfI’m no longer the director, I don’t care what happens to the place or the people. So, what’s it going to be, Leroy,” he demanded hatefully, knowing thatforonce, Gibbs was the one between a rock and a hard place.
Gibbs suddenly became ice cold, and Leon knew with certainty that his agent wanted nothing more than to terminate him with extreme prejudice. Hefelt a visceral chill sweep over him. Jackiewould say that someone walked over his grave. Buthe knew that he had won, and he stood up.
“Looks like I don’t have a choice,” the Marine growled at him through clenched teeth.
If looks could kill, Leon knew he’d be lying on the floor of the C-130 with his entrails a bloody mess beside him. He silently vowed never to turn his back, literally or figuratively when he was in Gibbs’ presence. He didn’t want to have a tragic accident of his own.
“No, you don’t have a choice. Nothingyou do will bringhimback. He’sgone. Ifit’s any solace, when he swore the oath, DiNozzo knew that he could die every time he came to work. Atleast he died in service of his country, and his death could help us track down an existential threat to this agency.”
By the way, Gibbs glowered at him, hisattempt to mollify the f*cking hypocrite who had demanded retribution for his own family, but baulked at Ziva and Eli having their own, was ill-timed. Vancedecided it was better to give him some time to calm down and get his head out of his ass. Shakinghis head, Vance figured he wouldn’t welcome riding back to Tel Aviv with him and Ziva.
Knowing that Ziva wouldn’t keep her lips zipped, he said. “Officer Malachi Ben-Gidon has offered to drive you back to Tel Aviv after you have had a chance to process the tragically unexpected news of Agent DiNozzo’s death.,” he said, pointedly. “Take your time and be ready to front the media when Eli releases the news.”
“You mean, after they stage the fake crime scene,” Gibbs muttered, feeling hollow and defeated.
As he exited the plane, the NCIS director smiled coldly. “Don’t hurry. Zivaassured me that it would take several hours.”
~oOo~
Officer Ben-Guidon watched Ziva as she threw the Mossad officer out of the SUV, childishly insisting that she drive. He watched as the NCIS Director Leon Vance entered the black SUV as they went careening off from the tarmac. Mal heartily hoped that his ride into the city with Ziva at the wheel was an unpleasantly bowel-loosening one. Her driving exploits were infamous, but Malachi didn’t feel one whit of sympathy for the man, he hoped Vance puked up his stomach contents as well as soiling himself.
Vance had curtly told him that Gibbs would require some time alone after learning that his second in charge had been in an unfortunate accident. Malachi had bowed his head in acknowledgement, indicating that he understood before the pair had gone screaming away from the US military plane, like the hounds of hell were chasing after the Mossad vehicle. He shook his head – the director’s daughter had always been an absolutely lunatic of a driver, now, with her anger far too close to the surface, she was a danger to herself and her passenger. It would be poetic justice if Ziva should herself be involved in a fatal accident.
However, no one would presume to try to stop her diving on the roads because of who her father was. Noteven when she posed a real threat to her fellow citizens. Andshe did pose a threat!
Hopefully, all she managed to do was scare the sh*t out of her passenger. If the worst happened and she killed them both, then no one, aside from Vance’s family, would be greatly distressed by their loss. Of course, Eli would be furious, but likely because he was depending upon her carrying out the mission in Somalia, which Rivkin had been slated to carry out before the stupid idiot got himself killed resisting arrest. If he hadn’t been drunk, he would have realised that even if NCIS had actually indicted him for killing Tabal and their ICE agent, Director David would have used diplomatic pressure to make sure it never went to trial. The worst that would have happened was that the US would have deported him back to Israel. It might have been humiliating, but it was a f*cking sight smarter than committing suicide by cop.
Malachi sighed, frustrated. Honestly, he was no fan of Eli David or his daughter, even though officially, Ben Guidon was Ziva’s boss, and Rivkin’s too. By the same token, Ben-Gidon would not have been Eli’s choice to head up the infamous Kidon unit either, there wasn’t any love lost between them. He definitely was not one of Eli’s bootlicking minions and he speculated, more likely than not, Eli David would have promoted Michael Rivkin or Ilan Bodnar to head the Kidon Unit. Both men were extremely loyal to Eli.
However, Malachi had been appointed to his current position during the tenure of former Director Barach, who was a moderate and had died in a terrorist bombing of his car. An incident which Ben-Gidon and others had felt was rather convenient timing for Eli David. Ben-Gidon’s own more moderate perspective did not mesh with the former deputy director, now the director, who was well known to possess an ever-increasingly hard-line opinion about the role of Mossad. On his promotion, he’d immediately begun launching missions to destroy terrorist cells, not only in neighbouring regions, particularly in countries that opposed Israeli’s very existence but also in countries such as the US and Great Britain who supported them politically and financially. There were a significant number of people in the current cabinet who were not comfortable with David’s enthusiasm for interfering with the domestic policies of their Allies.
One such mission was the one Rivkin had been sent on by the Mossad director, which had certainly worked out extremely well for everyone concerned, Malachi snorted disdainfully. It resulted in Rivkin’s unnecessary death, and it managed to ruffle quite a few feathers in the USA and also with their other allies. The head of Kidon did not bear any ill-will to the man who had killed his agent. As far as the head of the Kidon Unit was concerned, he believed the drunken fool only had himself to blame for the tragic consequences. Aside from Michael’s issues with alcohol, which Ziva, as his handler, should have seen and had him pulled from the mission immediately, Mal felt that the main reason Rivkin was dead was his arrogance. It had been bordering on pathological proportions.
In that regard, Michael and Ziva made a fine pair – they would have been a perfect match and produced brilliantly arrogant offspring, totally suited to carrying on Eli’s dynasty. It was probably down to his overweening arrogance that Rivkin had become sloppy, first coming to the attention of the OSP team of NCIS agents in Los Angeles, where he’d first been told to leave the country. An order which he duly defied – or had Director David ordered him to ignore it? Perhaps the truth was that he defied it because the American inside the US C-130 had been one of three NCIS agents to issue it, Malachi wondered?
Just like Eli’s son Ari Haswari, Rivkin was cursed with a colossal amount of egotism and possessed an alpha personality that clashed badly with Gibbs’ own. During their meeting, Rivkin reacted equally wilfully to Gibbs’ overly autocratic arrogance. And now both Ari and Michael were dead because of their obsessive need to have the upper hand in their dealings with Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a former Marine gunnery sergeant, Retcon Sniper and NCIS black ops assassin. In Rivkin’s case, Malachi could only speculate that f*cking Ziva David right under Gibbs’ nose in DC after Gibbs warned him off, would have made the drunk feel even more superior. Especially when the misguided American agent saw her as his surrogate daughter – a poor, wounded soul who needed his protection. When Ziva returned to Israel recently, she bragged how her father’s plan to use Ari’s termination with extreme prejudice had secured her a spot on Agent Gibbs’ team in DC after he removed the female agent. Even though Ziva only possessed minimal investigative skills, she did not seem worried because the agent she replaced had also been inexperienced. She had only been on Gibbs’ team for not quite two years.
Malachi looked at his watch and sighed. He was not a fan of the man inside the plane, finding his hubris and supreme overconfidence in his abilities to be overrated. After all, how good could Gibbs be, when Ziva and her father had duped him so easily? Yet, for all the responsibility he bore for what had happened leading up to Agent’s DiNozzo’s tragic situation, Ben Guidon also knew that Director Vance had taken a great deal of pleasure in neutering the Senior Supervisory Agent, because Ben-Gidon had slipped a microscopic listening device on the NCIS director when he’d first greeted him.
Malachi had heard the entire conversation between Leon Vance and Agent Gibbs and knew that Gibbs was now a tame duck. Once they returned to DC, any semblance that he was calling the shots would shatter like glass as Vance and Ziva would effectively control him. Heart and soul.
Of course, with Michael dead, the head of the Kidon Unit felt it was likely that Eli David would order his daughter to carry out the mission Rivkin was supposed to undertake. Retrieving the intel from Tabal’s laptop about the location of the terrorist camp in Africa, which had been lost when Rivkin died because he refused to be arrested, was sloppy and arrogant. As was the badly botched suicide attempt that he messed up, Malachi thought scathingly, little wonder then that Agent DiNozzo had been suspicious and had continued investigating the terrorist’s death after Vance closed the case – a rather obvious ploy to cover up for Eli and his inept minion, Rivkin.
What self-respecting terrorist would take themselves out of the game without taking out as many soft targets as possible with him?
A far better option for Officer Rivkin would have been to stage a scenario where he was killed during a falling out between him, and his fellow terrorists due to an old-fashioned power grab. The badly faked suicide was an embarrassment to the Kidon Unit, quite frankly. Rivkin had not been a shining example of the unit’s feared reputation and had he survived, Malachi would have already ordered Michael’s removal and retirement himself. However, as one of Eli David’s cadre of cloying sycophants and fanatics, not to mention the f*ck boy of Ziva David, Officer Rivkin had been untouchable…unfortunately. In Ben-Gidon’s opinion, Special Agent DiNozzo deserved a medal and their undying gratitude for taking out a blight on the Kidon Unit’s reputation. Yet Eli demanded that the American agent forfeit his life because the Mossad Director had suffered a loss of face. What a travesty.
He decided he would give the arrogant Agent Gibbs ten more minutes before he got into the plane to drag that agent’s sorry tukas out of the aircraft and drive him to Tel Av. While he felt some pity toward the man who had effectively been turned into a eunuch by Leon Vance and Eli David, the harsh truth was that he shared a great deal of the blame for what had happened. As Vance had pointed out, he had managed to get rid of Ziva from their agency without political fallout, but it was Gibbs who insisted on bringing the dangerous Kidon operative back into his midst, less than 9 months ago.
And this was the result, so he had no room to complain about the fallout.
As Ziva’s former boss, even before her assignment as a liaison to NCIS and her undercover role as Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ surrogate daughter, Malachi had always found Officer David to be unhinged, and therefore very dangerous. She was like a powerful black panther, all sinewy grace and barely restrained ferocity, but her dark doe eyes, her faint yet discernible aura of ‘wounded animal’; and her petite, yet deceptive strength and lethality were intoxicating. Many people underestimated her, to their own detriment, even their lives.
Yet as a trained assassin how could Gibbs not see beyond her façade and recognise he was in the presence of another apex predator like himself. But no, instead he had invited her into his team, into his family and treated her as a hapless victim. One of Malachi’s American friends would undoubtedly say this was a clear case of, ‘You bought the ticket, now take the ride.’ He thought it meant that you needed to consider your actions carefully and if so, it was very apt.
So, Malachi would not waste too many metaphoric tears on Gibbs’ harsh reckoning today, served to his first by the bitter truth of Agent DiNozzo’s situation the coup de grace delivered by his director. It was apparent to Malachi that the former Marine sniper had not only scorned Vance but seriously underestimated him, thanks to his own arrogance. Malachi also wasted no time feeling any sympathy for Ziva David, either. While he acknowledged that Eli had perverted her and Ari with his psychological abuse from childhood, she was far too dangerous an individual for him to give her even an inch of leeway, simply because her father had warped her for his own political ends.
Eli gave his children no other option but to enter the Mossad and serve, not their country but their father… he wanted to create a dynasty to replace him when he finally stepped down. Suchwas the man’s messianically aspirations, heset out to seduce a Palestinian doctor and impregnateher,so he could have an heir who was already half Arab to infiltrate his foes. Howmuch more narcissistic could a father possibly be than to see his offspring as mere pawns who could be trained up to do his bidding?
No, Malachi might mourn for the individual Ziva David had the potential to become as a child, but he would never allow himself the luxury of feeling pity for her. She was just too dangerous…too lethal. Her anger always simmering right below the surface and like an active volcano, it was far too unsafe to turn your back on her for a minute. He had no intention of getting burned by her pain, her never-ending quest to win the approval of her impossible-to-please, narcissistic sperm donor, who only saw her as an extension of himself. She would consume anyone who tried to get too close to her, just like her boyhood friend or in Agent DiNozzo’s case, his crime was that he’d failed to succumb to her seduction.
Looking at his watch, Malachi noted that the ten-minute grace had expired. He climbed out of the armour-plated black SUV and prepared to enter the Navy plane to haul Special Agent Gibbs’ ass to Tel Aviv alive. The Kidon unit leader was concerned that Eli might feel like he posed too much of a threat to let him live, given the threats he’d made to his director. Malachi didn’t think that Agent DiNozzo was the type of man who would want Gibbs to die because he threatened to reveal that they’d executed him in cold blood for defending his life against Rivkin. True he’d never had the privilege of meeting the man but after Rivkin was killed, Ben-Gidon had reached out to his contacts in the FBI and ATF and found that he was well-liked and highly regarded by his fellow agents.
Several also mentioned that though he was good at finding creative ways to bend the law, he would never break it merely to close a case or bring down a criminal; he believed in the justice system too much. A CIA operative, a slimy bastard called Trent Kort (who Ben-Gidon was familiar with unfortunately), and Rene Benoit’s handler before his death, had mocked DiNozzo roundly for being something called a White Hat, which referred to the good guys in old fashion western movies. Apparently, the good guys wore white hats, and the bad ones wore black ones, although the term was now associated with hackers more often than not.
The point was, Kort hadn’t meant it to be a compliment, and knowing the reputation of the UK-born CIA assassin, it actually spoke volumes about the character of Agent DiNozzo. So, when Malachi read DiNozzo’s report of the fight that led to Officer Rivkin’s death, he was far more inclined to believe he was telling the truth about their fight to the death. He’d not expected the Israeli to be there and had little choice but to shoot Rivkin when Michael attacked him. Plus the forensic evidence and his injuries matched his account.
So, Ben Guidon wasfairlysure that the last thing DiNozzo would want was for anyone to die in vain. By all reports, DiNozzo never hesitated to put himself in danger to save others, and Gibbs’ martyring himself would serve no purpose. Thetruth was that if Gibbs was deemed a threat, Eli would not hesitate to kill him. Fromwhat he’d heard while listening in to the conversation between Gibbs and his director, Leon Vance was so important to the powers that be in the US that they’d been willing to let Eli murder one of their own people for it. Anagent who was competent and ethicalso,itmust be something huge because selling out one of their own, a professional, whohad just been doing his duty was cowardly and dishonourable.
Sighing, he strode into the plane, vowing to try to keep Gibbs from painting any bigger target on his back than he already had. Hopefully, for Agent DiNozzo’s sake, he could manage to keep him alive until it was time for Agent Gibbs to get back on the plane and fly back home to America. Malachi knew that the most dangerous time in this whole chess game was going to be if he insisted on seeing Agent DiNozzo and pay his respects, although, with the delay in returning to HQ, they would have to leave now before DiNozzo would have already been moved to the site preselected to stage the fake car crash.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was gutted. Hecouldn’t believe what had just happened. Hisentire world had just imploded, and he hadn’t seen it coming.
Why hadn’t he seen this coming?
He honestly didn’t know what to do now,and that wastrulya rare occurrence. Thelast time he felt so impotent, so unable to make the world conform to hiswillwas after he woke up from his second coma. Hehad lost fifteen years of his life to amnesia, so it seemed as if the murders of Shannon and Kelly had only just happened. Formonths afterwards, anything that took place after that devastating loss had only been fleeting impressions or piecemeal memories. Ittook years for him to get back most of the years he’d lostandevennowthere were still holes – not that he ever admitted it to anyone.
But one thing he knew deep down in hisbones;Gibbspost-Kelly and Shannon’s deaths, had become obsessed with control. Ofcourse, he always had that tendency, even as a child. Hedidn’t take kindly to people telling him what to do…his parents,his teachers, hissuperiors. Havingto conform to rules and laws had always been a battle. Evenin the Corps, it was a constant struggle to rein in his rebelliousness when people gave him orders. Italso spurred himon,to rise up through the ranks as quickly aspossible,so he could be the one with the rank to tell everyone else what to do.
It was why he would never have survived in law enforcement, having to kowtow to a bunch of nob-heads who weren’t fit to shine his boots, yet theysomehow ended up in positions of power, which infuriated him, no end. Justlike it pissed him off to have someone else take the lead on an investigation. Thankfully, NCIS was a small enough agency that he couldjuststeamroller his way over the top of anyone who got in his way or tried to tell him what to do.
He’dhonestlythought that after almost a year of him and Leon circling each other, trying to land a knockout punch, with Leon breaking up his team, and thenwhen Jethro learned about the director’s MOAS, they’d finally come to an understanding. Hebelieved that Leon realised that Gibbswas never going tosubmit to Vance telling him what to do, so he should back off and let him run his own show likehe’ddone ever since he started working at NIS.Henever dreamed that his own tactics would be turned against him since most people were too f*cking scared of Gibbs to threaten him like Leon just did, but Jethro finally realised something. Asmuch as Jethro was a predator, pure and simple, who needed the thrill of the chase to survive the fury he felt at losing his family, driving him onwards, Leon was equally driven.
No,notdriven to chase down the dirtbags like Gibbswas,becauseinessence, Gibbs was forever chasing himself, having gotten away with murder, and knowing how damned easy it had been, his subconscious hadalwaysrailed against that part of him. Asmall part of him recognised that it was the height of hypocrisy for him to arrest others for doing what he’d done himself and managed to get away with.Itwas why, after the chase, when they were arrested, Jethro always experienced a frustrating sense of conflict.Hecould never experience a sense of satisfaction that they’d brought closure to a family or justice to the murdered, just a terrible mounting tension that only dissipated when he started up the chase once more, seeking fresh meat, new cases. Anything that would blot out the memories of Kelly and Shannon, anything to mute his feelings of hypocrisy and double standards
But listening to Leon as he ranted and threatened him and the rest of the agency a little while ago, Jethro suddenly had that light bulb moment…the two-by-four over-the-head epiphany that made him realise something critical that he’d overlooked, to his detriment. Leonwas driven by his own rage about growingup,poor and disadvantaged by prejudice due to the colour of his skin. Hestruggled to exist in a crime-riddled city without the educational and vocational opportunities other people -rich people took for granted.
His obsessive drive was to rise to the top, to prove he was as good, or even better than all of those people Vance believed, who had everything handed to them on a silver platter. Perhaps that would explain his blatant animosity toward DiNozzo, who Leon no doubt assumed had a Little Lord Fauntleroy upbringing. It suddenly hit Gibbs that Leon didn’t choose to join NIS because he wanted to serve and protect. His motive was ambition, power, and wealth, which in his mind no doubt added up to being a success. And should Jethro take him down, Leon’s ruthless side wouldn’t be exactly cut up if he brought others down with him, too.
Not even if the entire agency imploded. Now, that was cold!
Having taken refuge in the plane that had brought Officer Rivkin back home for burial, Jethro found himself flashing back to a case his team had worked on some years before. He, Tony, and Cate had been called out on a case, and they had found one of their own, Special Agent Chris Pacci, lying eviscerated in an elevator in some random building in DC. Theveteran agent, who had been thinking of retiring when his twenty years were up soon, was lying in a pool of his own deep red blood and his bloody entrails. Hiseyes were clouded and unseeing in death, the look on his face worth a thousand words in communicating the agony he’d experienced in the time it took him to exsanguinate before, hewas thankfully no longer capable of feeling pain.
With a start, Gibbs realisedthat hewas the only one left now. AriHaswari, Eli David’s son, had killed Cate with a sniper rifle atop abuilding,seconds after she had taken several rounds in her flak jacket to save Gibbs’ life. Ashe and Tony helped her to her feet, Haswari had taken aim at her and executed a perfect headshot. Jethrocould still picture her blood and grey matter that had sprayed across DiNozzo’s face because that was how close he’d been standing to his partner. Evenwith allofthe crazy stuff that had intervened over time, that image was disturbingly etched in his memory. Vividand unforgettable.
And now Haswari’s sister and father had ordered DiNozzo’s execution as retribution for him killing Officer Rivkin. TheKidon assassin attacked Tony when he rushed over to Ziva’s apartment to askthe liaison why the laptop they found in a dead terrorist’s hotel room was connected to the internet, using her ISP location before he informed Gibbs. Ziva, prostrate with grief over her Mossad Lover’s death, accusing DiNozzo of being jealous that Rivkin and Ziva were lovers, sayingthat he went there intending to kill Rivkin. Gibbshad disputed that, telling her that Tony went to her apartment, intent on protecting her from the sh*t that the laptop would inevitably bring down upon her.
Tony claimed that when he found Rivkin in her apartment alone, he had made the connection that Rivkin had swapped his computer for Tabal’s. He then realised Rivkin had neglected to wipe the internet connectivity records on his Mossad-issued laptop before swapping it out with Tabal’s, but then, when Tony tried to take him in for questioning, Rivkin attacked him. Given that Abby corroborated the information about the laptop, Gibbs believed him. Gibbs told her that Tony didn’t lie, but Ziva refused to listen.
Knowing that his senior field agent was always incredibly protective of his team, to the point where he would sacrifice himself to save them, he believed Tony. After all, he’d willingly take a bullet for them, hold the trigger of a car bomb so McGee and Cate could run to safety, or dive into filthy water to save Gibbs and Maddie Tyler trapped in a submerged car. DiNozzo had sent Ziva off to retrieve a non-existent flash drive, knowing that McGee and Gibbs would save her, knowing the assassins hired to kill them would probably kill him after Ziva was gone; DiNozzo had protected her even though he barely knew her back then. Wanting to give Ziva a heads up that she was going to be under suspicion of being connected to Abin Tabal’s computer (after working with her for four years), was not in any way stretching credibility.
Ziva wassimplytoo angry, lashing out at Tony, desperate for a scapegoat.Mostly,because it was so much easier to blame him than to accept that the blame for Rivkin’s death must be borne by herself, Eli David and Rivkin. He’dbeen warned to leave the US, and the Mossad officer arrogantly ignored the orders issued by federal agents in line with a FISA warrant. Plus, Ziva was his handler, as Jethro had only belatedly learned, despite the fact she was Jethro’s liaison officer. Shewas NOT meant to be running around behind his back, doing her spying sh*t.
Jenn had persuaded him to accept her onto his team because she said that Ziva was desperate toget away fromthe toxic influences of her father’s machinations. He’dnot signed up for her working for two masters. Gibbsdemanded absolute loyalty from his people – he owned them body and soul. Andyet, she had the nerve to question DiNozzo’s honesty after lying to the team…to him!
The double standard would be laughable, except it had cost DiNozzo his life, all because his loyal Saint Bernard was trying to look out for her.
As to why Jethro would experience that flashback about Pacci right now, it didn’t take a shrink to figure out why his subconscious had dredged up that particularly gore-filled imagery. Chrishad been following up on a cold case he’d been trying to solve for some years when the veteran agent suddenly got a lead. Sincehis former partner, Cassie Yates, had transferred to the drug squad, wanting to specialise in undercover work, Pacci was flying solo. Nowhe was assigned to cold cases when the hit came in, herealised he needed backup. Thecase involved a sailor, Commander Voss, who was the chief suspect in an embezzlement case but went cold when the commander died in a car accident, the vehicle exploding. Themoney was never recovered.
Later, the ME who performed Voss’ autopsy was killed under suspicious circ*mstances, but there were no leads in the case, and it was declared a cold case. WhenPacci learnt that Amanda Reed cropped up in the investigation, whom subsequent inquiries had revealed, had a tenuous association with the deceased and then she bought the old family home, Chris must have instinctively realised it was dangerous investigating her. Howright he was!
He’d come to Gibbs asking if he was busy, but Jethro was caught up in hisownobsessive drive to solve a case that had also gone cold. Inbetween dealing with the MCRT’s current caseload, he was also desperately trying to identify a terrorist who’d infiltrated NCIS security in a body bag, taking Ducky, his assistant Gerald Jackson and Agent Todd hostage down in Autopsy. Theterrorist (who’d turned out to be Ari Haswari) shot Gerald and Jethro in the shoulder, also killing two of the FBI’s HRT agents, before escaping into thin air.
Gibbs had been pushing everyone way beyond their limits to find out who the terrorist was, so he could track him down and make him pay. Unfortunately, when Pacci approach him for help, Gibbs fobbed him off. Pacci, who was a good guy and a team player, hadn’t pushed him on it. Even though the MCRT was supposed to be his backup when cold cases heated up, as this one had, because Chris knew like everyone in the bullpen did, that Gibbs was already pushing his team to the brink. Instead, he nabbed a young cyber hotshot in Norfolk to help out with the finance records search, telling Gibbs it could wait, as it was a cold case.
However, Pacci had made a major miscalculation and he ended up dead on the floor of an elevator the very next day, his intestines strewn all over the ground in a nightmarish tableau that he’d never forget. If Gibbs had taken the time to hear Chris out and give him backup, it was highly unlikely that the transsexual Voss/Reed would have gotten the jump on him because he would have had someone to watch his six. It was something that Gibbs tried not to think about, because although the MCRT had solved the crime – both Pacci’s murder and the original cold case, he couldn’t forget his role in Chris’ horrific death. It was definitely not something he was proud of, especially after it turned out that the terrorist he was obsessed with turned out to be Ari Haswari, Eli David’s son and Ziva’s half-brother.
So, while the situation between the Voss/Reed case and the Tabal/ Agent Sherman cases on the surface seemed to be not at all similar, Gibbs knew that his subconscious had flashed back to the gruesome crime scene in the elevator because like this situation, Gibbs hadn’t listened and Chris, and now DiNozzo was dead because of it. Oh sure, the reasons differed, this time, he was too preoccupied with coming to terms with the knowledge that Leon Vance wasn’t who he said he was. Then afterwards, he travelled to LA to work with OSP, locking horns with SAC Lara Macy, again. Jethro encountered her fifteen years ago when she was still a Marine MP, who had tried to charge him with murder because he shot and killed Shannon and Kelly’s killer, yet, Jethro had been able to outwit her and remained free.
The plain truth was that Gibbs had never suffered a single moment’s regret for executing Pedro Hernandez – he was not a man who second-guessed himself in general. Hesought retribution for what Hernandez had stolen from him, and there was no way he would ever feel any remorse for killing him…the man was scum, pure and simple. Theonly regret he felt was that killing him did little to diminish the unbearable pain and loss he felt when they died.
Nor had he initially felt guilty when he accepted Mike Frank’s offer to join his team at NIS and hunt down criminals, lowlifes and murderers and put them in jail, never seeing the hypocrisy in how he earned a living. Itdidn’t occur to him that it was a shocking double standard for him to treat Lara Macy so abominably when she was simply doing her job…the exact same one he’d done in chasing down murderers every day. Tohate her so ferociously was to despise himself for doing precisely the same thing she had done back in the Corps. YetGibbs seemed incapable of questioning himself, mostly because he refused to second-guess what was already done.
It had been the OSP operational psychologist, god damn that f*cking shrink, who Macy had obviously confided in, who’d made him see himself. Thewhole time he was therehecould feel Getz watching him, assessing Gibbs’ hypocritical behaviour towards herandno doubtinthat assessment, found him wanting. Thatjudgemental prick dared to take him to task when he was leaving.
Jethro had always assumed that the investigation by Lieutenant Macy into Hernandez’s assassin had faltered due to a lack of evidence. He’d always felt inordinately proud that he’d carried out his righteous retribution so perfectly that she couldn’t prove anything. He hated her for causing him more pain with her investigation into Hernandez’s death.
Nate Getz had proceeded to shatter his illusions when, in his seemingly gentle bedside manner, he informed him that Macy had more than enough evidence to convict him with premeditated murder. She’ddecided that the death of his family was punishment enough and buried her case. In truth, Macy had risked her own career for him and ran the real risk of being charged with obstruction of justice, concealing a crime. Shehad risked being charged as an accessory after the fact and getting a BCD or servingserioustime in Leavenworth for burying the evidence. Thanksto Macy, the matter was dropped for lack of evidence, and even though Gibbs literally owed her his life, he had continued to spew hatred at her the whole time he was in LA.
While he never apologised to her for his hateful behaviour, as he believed apologies were a sign of weakness, Gibbs had been preoccupied when he returned to DC. Jethrowas still trying to come to terms with the fact that the MP he’d harbour so much anger towards for attempting to lock him up for murder had been the one shielding him from prosecution. Landingbacking in the middle of the whole debacle with the faux poker game at SECNAV place with the heads of the other alphabets, ICE Agent Sherman’s death and the bug which proved that someone was spying on the clandestine meeting, been too much. Alongwith Callen being almost killed, it had pushed aside his all-too-brief moment of introspection that Nate Getz had provoked. Especiallywhen it had beenobvious,that Ziva was hiding something from the team.
Then all hell had broken loose when DiNozzo had somehow managed to kill Rivkin, who, even if he was drunk, should have still had the advantage if Ziva’s boasting about Mossad training techniques was to be believed. Ofcourse, his agent hadn’t got off scot-free; he was still lucky to be alive,although,that was a poor choice of words because nothing that happened after that had been lucky for his loyal Saint Bernard. WhenTonycame tohim with legitimate concerns after Rivkin’s death, Gibbs was too preoccupied to listen to him, brushing them aside impatiently. WhenGibbs informed Tony that he and Gibbs had been ordered to accompany the director and Ziva to Israel, that they were escorting Rivkin’s remains back home, Tony got a weird assed inscrutable look on his face. Hewas uncharacteristically silent for over a minute before finally replying.
“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea, Boss. Seemsto me that Eli David’s a little bit too fond of the Old Testament,” he said, shaking his head.
Gibbs frowned, not liking that Tony seemed reluctant to follow hislead,on this matter. “Well, yeah, DiNozzo. He’s Jewish.”
Tony looked at him incredulously. “You think I don’t know that Gibbs? I’mjust saying that Mossad is famed for being mighty big fans of the whole eye for an eye mantra,” he pointed out grimly. “I’m thinking that taking a trip…well, it could be hazardous to my health,” he argued.
“Let’s face it,” he huffed. “Ziva keeps muttering dire threats about how I should be in the morgue, not Rivkin. Shetold IA I should be thrown into prison since she insisted that I went to her place intending to pick a fight with Rivkin, even though I didn’t expect him to be there. IAruled it was self-defence, so what does the director hope to achieve?
“You scared, DiNozzo,” Gibbs taunted him impatiently, expecting him to give in when he called him on it.
Looking at Jethro like he had two heads, DiNozzo gave a bitter little laugh. “You bet’cha I’m f*cking scared, Gibbs. Something tells me that Mossad is really pissed at me, despite them being the ones who are in the wrong here, for sending an assassin into the US and operating their secret terrorist execution mission illegally. How come THEY get to blow off the FISA warrant, which is pretty damned rude as they’re supposed to be our allies. I think we should be the ones who are getting all pissy, not them,” he said, exasperated.
Gibbs felt a touch of impatience that Tony was being so self-centred when Ziva was shattered by Rivkin’s death, and he didn’t even try to hide his irritation.
“Look, DiNozzo, SECNAV told me that it was critical that we follow Vance’s lead, and the Director says that you needed to step up – take one for the team. Man up, go to Tel Aviv and tell them what happened.”
“Ya mean take one for the team, like I did with the Domino sh*t fest because Ziva failed to follow your direct orders, Boss?” he asked Gibbs cynically. “Did anyone demand she should be punished for putting both of our lives at risk?”
Tony’s paranoid whining was getting on his nervesandhis pointed dig about Jethro letting Ziva disobey his direct order not to engage the Marines had riled him up. Hedidn’t appreciate his subordinate criticising how he managed his team.
“Look, DiNozzo, we both know if you refuse to front up and answer their questions, it’s gonna look like we’re hiding something. Justbe a man and get it over and done with,” he said impatiently. ”It’ll be fine,” he said, brushing aside DiNozzo’s legitimate concerns, too focused on his surrogate daughter and her terrible grief and loss.
Except it wasn’t fine! Tonyhad been right to call him out on his BS attitude. In his own defence, Jethro badly underestimated how much blind ambition Leon possessed, plus how far Vance and SECNAV were willing to go so they could curry favour with Mossad. Itwas nothing short of treasonhecould see that… now that it was much too late. DiNozzohadn’t wanted to go to Israel; he knew it was a boneheaded and dangerous move, but Jethro wouldn’t listen to his SFA.
No, he was too caught up trying to comfort Ziva because he couldn’t bear to see her suffering. He’dmanipulated DiNozzo, knowing that if he implied thathewas being a puss*, he’d stop his whining and arguing. Andnow, because Gibbs was too arrogant to think that Mossad would risk doing anything worse than roughing him up a bit while they interrogated him, Tony was lying dead in a morgue in Tel Aviv.
He remembered the hurt he’d seen in DiNozzo’s eyes when he lost patience with Tony. Jethro had yelled at him to think about how his partner felt and stop thinking about himself for a change. Even when he said it and saw Tony’s expression, Gibbs knew he’d overstepped the mark…way over it! The truth was that his second in charge was pathologically forgiving, and he always put the team’s welfare before his own needs. Gibbs knew that and frequently took advantage of it.
Unfortunately, Gibbs was feeling emotionally wrung out by seeing how much pain Ziva was in. Itreminded him of when he lost his wife and daughter, so he’d taken out his anger on DiNozzo, just like he always did.Heknew he should have apologised to him whenhesaw the look of betrayal and the resignation,hada rule about itandheneverapologised to him before.DiNozzoalways sucked up his foul moods and forgave him, so he saw no need to alter his behaviour this time, either.
Besides, even if he had wanted to apologise, Tony avoided him after that. Gibbsonly saw him when he turned up at the airbase thirty minutes before their flight so they could go through the farce of paying respects when Rivkin’s body was loaded on the C-130. Notsurprisingly, DiNozzo had been in no mood to talk. Hesaton his own, away from Gibbs, Vance, and Ziva for the 12-hour flight, and completely ignored the trio. Itdid not escape Jethro’s notice that he was in pain, but intypical DiNozzo fashion, he refused to take anything for the pain, not wanting the other passengers to see him as a weakling.
Gibbs briefly thought about going and checking up on him but decided not to because Ziva was so angry with Tony, that he thought it would only make her rage worse if he showed any concern for him, so he’d ignored him, too. He told himself that he’d explain when they were alone…except they never got a chance to talk again. In fact, the only communication that they had after his earlier accusation of being selfish and weak was when his agent was climbing into the SUV with Officer Hadar (his executioner) and had given Gibbs a look that combined absolute betrayal and the wounded look of an abused puppy, before driving away from the Army base.
It was that look that had finally made Gibbs pull his head out of his ass and ask the damned question he should have asked as soon as Leon raised the subject of DiNozzo taking one for the team back in DC. Howcould he be so blind? Whydid his gut let him down so badly?
He reluctantly conceded that he’d come to believe all the bullsh*t about himself, speciously assuming his badass reputation meant that no one, not even Mossad or Leon Vance, would dare to mess with his team. NowGibbs was shaken to his core to realise he was wide of the mark about that, too. Itwould seem he’d greatly overestimated his reputation as someonewhono one dared to cross. Thatmassive miscalculation was what cost Tony his life.
As they drove back to Mossad headquarters in the city, the Marine’s thoughts centred on Jenny Shepard’s replacement and just how badly Gibbs had underestimated the man’s ruthless and ambitious nature. To be fair, though, Jethro had been taken in by his cosy domestic home life…his kids had been just too damned cute, and his wife was a lovely woman. Meeting Leon’s family, even after his suspicions had been confirmed, Gibbs held his tongue, deciding that they didn’t deserve to be dragged into this sordid identity-swapping situation. Of course, the fact that the director had been troubled enough for him to send SECNAV to tell him, not very subtly, that he knew about every minute of the Director’s life suggested that Davenport was already well acquainted with the switching of places between Tyler Owens and Leon Vance. He even wondered if it had been done with the full approval of the powers that be so they could facilitate some sort of counterintelligence op and had then just decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
Now, in hindsight, Gibbs realised if the director’s identity swap had been sanctioned, then the powers that be would have authorised NCIS to investigate the case against the fake Tyler Owens. It would have aroused way less suspicion than the director’s ham-fisted investigation and attempt to keep him off the case – it had only certainly made him curious and determined to know what he wasn’t being told. And really, all they would need was to create a fake enlistment and a medical discharge record for Marine Lieutenant Tyler Keith Owen, and no one would likely have been any the wiser about the swapped identity.
Vance wouldn’t have needed to slink off to Chicago and poach a junior agent and his Mossad liaison to investigate his murder. Jethroknew that he’d taken those two, as neither agent would question the case or his orders. Nordid they have the skills or experience to realise something was wrong.
That had immediately tipped Gibbs off that this was not legit.
Of course, the SECNAV’s bluffing was another dead giveaway, but evenmore than his visit to Gibbs’ basem*nt or the director’s shonky investigation, it had been during the visit to Vance’s home that something occurred that really made him suspicious. First, there was the snippet of intel that Leon Vance had been a lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Gibbscould always spot a Marine a mile away, and he’d never gotten any jarhead vibes from Leon. IfLeon was a Marine,he’deat his hat; he was so sure of himself on that score. Maybe, if he’d claimed to be in the Navy, Gibbs could have bought it, but NOT the Corps.
Plus, there was the director’s charming wife, Jackie, who had unknowingly supplied him with the missing piece of the puzzle, Jackiehad innocently mentioned that Leon had briefly been in a Marine before sustaining a blow to the head in the boxing ring. Itleft him with a detached retina and resulted in a medical discharge from the Corps before he was recruited to join NIS (NCIS’ predecessor),instead. AfterDucky had confirmed during the second post-mortem of ‘Tyler Owen’ thathe found evidence of a surgically repaired retina, Gibbs knew thatwithouta doubt, Tyler Keith Owens was therealLeon Vance.
Why they had swapped identities, he didn’t know. Jethrocould only speculate about what would have prompted therealLeon Vance – the man who died in Chicago a few weeks ago – to swap identities. Somethingshould have jumped out at him and bit him hard on the ass, yet, somehow, it had escaped him that the newest appointed Director for the Naval Criminal Investigative Services (the real Tyler Keith Owens) was a real cold-blooded SOB. Hewas also an opportunist and lacked moral fibre, and Jethrowondered how his gut failed to alert him to the risk the director posed?
When Vance had taken off to Chicago to investigate the death of his childhood friend, who he insisted was a former Marine, it hadn’t been hard for Gibbs to figure out what was behind his insistence that his boyhood friend, who was going by the name Tyler Keith Owens, was a Marine when there was no record of him enlisting or serving. Forsome reason, though, it never clicked with Gibbs, who Tara Kole really was. Shewas not the sister of the fake Tyler Owen, who had been murdered. TarawastherealTyler’ssister, aka the fake Leon Vance, NCIS’ newest director.
Vance was denying his familial relationship to a blood relation, and Gibbshad decided to keep his mouth shut about the switched ID, partly because Davenport implied that he already knew. Butmostly, Jethro stayed silent because the director’s wife and two children were clearly oblivious to his true identity, and he didn’t want them to learn the truth… the Director’s family was so damnnice.Buthow could he have failed to see that Tara was Leon’s real sisterwhohe’d turned his back on from the momentthatthe two young men had switched identities almost two decades ago?
That took a lot of ambition and ruthlessness to deny your own blood!
After meeting the high-class prostitute called Tara Kolewhowas married to a Chicago mob boss… or a supposedly former mob boss, it should have beenobviousto him. Leon’shigh-handed behaviour towards her, kidnapping her and placing her in protective custody was not the way a man treated his old friend’s sister who’d just lost her brother. Itwas way more familial than that.
No, it was true sibling-like behaviour… a big brother actthat wasdeeply ingrained despite their long-term separation. Itwas too comfortable…too unconscious for it to be an act.Goddamn it…how had he missed the implications of her being his sibling?
He’d never bothered putting the pieces together, but hereallyshould have. Ifhe had done so, Jethro might have asked himself the most relevant question, what sort of man was the Director? Whatkind of individual would be prepared to put personal ambitions before allelse…be willing to deny the existence of his own flesh and blood? Notonly did he deny their familial bond, but he’d willingly severed all contact with her and the fake Tyler Owen, who was supposed to be his best friend.
Gibbs wondered, had he cut ties with Kole because she was a hooker?
Was he ashamed of her because he was afraid that if anyone knew who she was, it would harm his career?
Gibbs couldn’t fathom what kind of man would cut all ties with his sister, would stop her from having any type of relationship with her own niece and nephew. Had Leon (or Tyler) ever consulted her about plans to switch identities before the swap? Given the naked ambition displayed by Leon, why hadn’t he taken the pragmatic option of eliminating her rather than cutting off contact? It would have been the safer option, would even he be unwilling to go to such lengths?
Jethro worried that now he was suspicious, and Leon knew it, so he might belatedly decide it was safer to get rid of her. Although, since Kole was protected by her mob boss husband, Leon could find it too hard to get near enough to take her out. Ifhe decided to do so, he’d no doubt blame Joe Banks or the numerous mobster competitors for her death, but Gibbsdidn’t know if Leon had ever killed anyone in cold blood before.
Jethro was furious with himself. If his head wasn’t so far up his ass, he could easily have obtained a DNA sample from Tara while she was at the Navy Yard and got definitive proof that they were brother and sister. That would have been more than enough to stop the director f*cking around with him and his team. But he’d let his heart rule his head and now he was paying the price for his brief lapse into sentimental sappiness. DiNozzo was dead, and the director had the goods on the rest of his team and was not afraid to use them to keep Gibbs at heel. It was a new experience for Gibbs to not feel in control over his environment, and he was angry and afraid for the rest of his team.
The whole switching of identities was aseriousbreach of national security – it meant that Vance was compromised andleft him open to corruption and blackmail from enemies of the US. Itshamed Jethro that he hadn’t taken ameliorative action just as soon as he discovered the con, and it wasn’t only because Jackie Vance and her kids would get hurt if Gibbs outed Leon/Tyler. Muchas it pained him to admit it, almost like apologies, themajorreasonwhyhedidn’t reporthim,was that Gibbs had collected skeletons on people so that he could hold them over their heads or rack up favours for when he needed to call on them. Now, all because he failed to observe the law, hell was raining down on them, and it was his fault that Tony was dead.
Why didn’t you read the file when Kort first gave it to you,heberatedhimself. Buthe knew why. Hedidn’t want to be beholden to the likes of Trent Kort and get a little slimy.You’re such a hypocrite, Jethro. Not like you aren’t plenty dirty already – it’s just that Kort manages to piss you off in a way few others ever do, and you hate it. You ignored it, and now you have to pay the price.
Don’tcha mean DiNozzo does, you pathetic coward!
As he looked out of the darkened window of the SUV at the arid-looking landscape, knowing that they would soon reach the city, it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps SECNAV wasn’t the only one who knew about Owen/Vance. Itwas also possible that Eli David may know too and might have already compromised him. Thethird possibility was both men were simply power-crazed and not particular who they destroyed on their way up the ladder.
He steeled himself for what was to come. Aftera short phone call that had been conducted in Hebrew, Ben Guidon told him quietly that their bosses wanted him to identify DiNozzo’s body, and he cursed them both to Hell. Jethroknewthat itwasn’t strictly necessary, as the Director or Ziva could have identified him if they wanted to play out this farce, but no, they wanted to rub salt into his wounds. Theyneeded to ram home the point that if he didn’t go along with their plan and avoid an international incident about DiNozzo’s death, the Director and Davenport would destroy everyone else, too. Ducky, Abby, McGee, and Palmer would pay the price, although Gibbs wasn’t overly fussed about Ducky’s assistant. Itwasn’t like he had invested years in his career like the other three and would never get another job in law enforcement. Hecould at least go be a medical doctor if need be.
This also reminded Gibbs that Abby would go crazy when she learned about Tony. Heremembered when she cornered him in her lab before they flew out to Tel Aviv and demanded that he take superespeciallygoodcare of ‘her’ Tony. WhenGibbs expressed his surprise, saying that DiNozzo was more than capable of looking after himself, she shook her head emphatically, her black pigtails whipping back and forth shaking her head violently.
“No, Bossman. Doyou remember when I had that dream before Tony was abducted by that Vanessa psycho-bitch in the sewers? Iwarned you then that you shouldn’t let himgo offalone?”
Gibbs tried to brush her offbecausehonestly, he tried not to think about that case if he could avoid it, but like a damn pit bull, she’d refused to be fobbed off.
“Well, I had another dream like itandsomething bad happens to him over there, so don’t let him go anywhere without you watching his six,” she lectured him earnestly, to which Gibbs had nodded assent and then duly forgotten.
She was going to absolutely freak out if she learnt that Mossad had executed him. TheGoth, who was like a daughter to Gibbs, would never forgive him, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to forgive himself either. Aforensic scientist had more of an idea of how a Senior Supervisory Agent should lead his team than Gibbs did, and he hadn’t even bothered to listen to Abby, too busy putting himself in Ziva’s place.
He’d been so determined not to let her damned father call her back to Israel, he never bothered to look out for Tony, and now Gibbs wasn’t sure he could even be in the same room with her. Why didn’t he listen to Tony when he tried to warn him it was a dumb ass move to go to Israel.
Gibbs wasprettysure that every night when he closed his eyes from this point on, he would see that last look of DiNozzo’s right before he was driven away. Itwould haunt him for the rest of his miserable existence.
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