Of Jews and Gentiles (11/12)
Chapter 37
The silver-haired man kept his target in his sights without being obvious about it, remaining far enough from the elderly man in the wheelchair to appear uninterested, but close enough to hear every raspy word the octogenarian spoke, which wasn't always easy. Judging by the crowds that surrounded him, the aging jeweler was quite the social butterfly of the congregation.
“Ah, Mr. Dinallo,” Saul Steiner spoke as he approached a younger couple standing near the back of the social hall of the synagogue. The man identified as Dinallo stopped his conversation in mid-sentence to glance down at the old man, his eyes sweeping past the observer as he did so. There was no hint of recognition in his expression before it slowly turned to a grin.
“Mr. Steiner,” Dinallo greeted. “How are you this morning?”
“Fine, fine,” Steiner said, waving off the question as his attention shifted to the attractive young woman standing by Dinallo. There was a change in the smile that crossed the jeweler's face. “And this must be the wonderful Ziva,” he said, reaching for one of the woman's hands and kissing it gently, earning him a small laugh in response. “She is even more beautiful than you described, Mr. Dinallo.”
The man observing heard Dinallo chuckle at the statement. “Ziva, this is Mr. Saul Steiner, the jeweler I was telling you about,” he introduced. She had a slightly puzzled look on her face, so her boyfriend prompted, “Where I got your watch.”
“Ah,” she said, glancing down at the gold band on her wrist before smiling over at Steiner. “I should thank you. It is a beautiful piece.”
“Oh, Mr. Dinallo here picked that one out on his own,” Steiner informed her. She smiled again and shook her head slightly.
“You are trying to give him too much credit,” she scolded lightly. “Tony does not know anything about picking out jewelry.”
“Maybe not, Ms. Ziva, but he does know his lady and knows what she would like,” Steiner replied. The silent observer was in just a position where he could see the large wink Steiner sent to Dinallo, who just smiled at him before turning that grin over to Ziva and kissing her lightly on the temple. It didn't take a trained investigator to know what that look between boyfriend and girlfriend meant.
Steiner continued to exchange pleasantries with Dinallo and the foreign woman, Ziva, before wheeling off. The man made his way to follow, but was blocked by a somewhat familiar-looking man in a well-tailored suit. “Hello,” the man said. Judging by the large cheesy smile, the man was sure he was either a lawyer or a politician. “I don't believe we've met. Senator Barry Lowe, Ohio.”
Politician, then. Not that it made much of a difference; he didn't have much use for either set. “Gunnery Sergeant Jethro Gimmel, US Marine Corps,” the man replied, the assumed identity sliding right off his tongue. “I'm in town for a week of meetings at the Pentagon before heading back to Camp Pendleton on Tuesday, so no, we haven't met.”
“Marine, eh?” Lowe asked with sudden interest while the man continued to watch Steiner in his peripheral vision. He couldn't make out everything he was saying, but the jeweler had the group of senior citizens he was talking to almost rolling with laughter. “Maybe we should go off and find some place to chat. I've been working on getting on the Defense committee in the Senate, and-”
The man cut him off with a hand raised defensively. “I'm sorry, Senator, but I make it a point not to work on Saturdays, and that includes not talking about work.”
“Of course,” Lowe replied smoothly. From the corner of his eye, the man saw Elsa Steiner begin to make her way toward her father, likely to collect him to get him home. He knew he had to shake the senator quickly, but the politician seemed to have other plans. “Listen, I don't know if you've had much time to see the sights while you've been here, seeing as you've been wrapped up at the Pentagon-”
“Actually, I've seen them,” the man interrupted again. “I was stationed out here a couple of years ago. Uh, if you'll excuse me, Senator...” He let his voice trail off as he nodded toward the restrooms.
“Ah, right,” the senator said, nodding his understanding. Before stepping aside to allow the “Marine” to pass, he expertly whipped a business card from a location the man couldn't identify. “Well, it was good talking to you, uh, Sergeant, and I just want to thank you for your service to our country. If you need anything, anything at all, don't hesitate to give my office a call or drop us an email. We members of the tribe need to stick together, right?”
“Right,” he agreed with a nod, making a mental note to ask someone what he was talking about. “It was nice to meet you, sir.” After one last handshake, Lowe finally moved aside, allowing his new acquaintance to pass. He headed in the general of the restrooms, making a wide arc through the social hall as if trying to avoid the larger crowds of people. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Elsa Steiner, making his way in front of her as she dutifully followed her father's motorized wheelchair. The man didn't even change his stride as he dropped the small item he was carrying into the pouch at the back of Saul Steiner's chair. His mission complete, he made one final stop by the restrooms before leaving as unobtrusively as he arrived.
---
By the time Agent McGee arrived at Ziva Kenig's condo with Abby Sciuto in tow, Gibbs and DiNozzo were already seated at the kitchen counter sipping coffee while Ziva was standing a few feet away preparing lunch. “Any luck?” he asked eagerly, excited about the idea of having this mission over with once and for all.
“Yeah, McGullible, we're at NCIS booking our serial killer now,” DiNozzo replied sarcastically. McGee could feel his face fall. “We've got nothing, unless you consider me and Ziva, the rabbi and his wife, and a group of men who keep their teeth in jars at night to be suspects, because that's everyone who Steiner talked to for longer than three seconds.”
“The issue of custom jewelry or engagement rings didn't come up once,” Gibbs added. “I did drop that recording do-dad you gave me into his wheelchair bag.”
“Actually, Boss, it's a microphone and transmitter package. It doesn't store any data, so it's not really a recorder. How it works is that when it's noise activated-”
“McGee.”
“Right, sorry, Boss. Not important. So, the transmitter pack has about a hundred hours of battery life, and it's only turned on when there's noise around. Assuming Steiner doesn't talk to himself in his sleep or when he's alone in his workshop, it should last a week and a half to two weeks. The microphone is strong enough to catch anything in five feet, so if he says anything about Tony's ring order in that time, we'll catch it.”
“Assuming he doesn't talk to himself in his sleep or when he's alone in his workshop,” DiNozzo muttered.
“And assuming that the transmitter works and the microphone is strong enough and this is his only wheelchair and he doesn't find the transmitter and-”
“Abby,” McGee interrupted with a frown. “We're thinking happy thoughts.”
“Oh, right. In that case, I'm sure we'll get him, Tony.” She patted DiNozzo's hand reassuringly.
“Thanks, Abs,” the senior field agent said dryly. “In the meantime, I need to keep my eyes open for a crazed gun-wielding madman who is trying to save the Jewish culture one high-class couple at a time.”
“He might not be gun-wielding, Tony,” Ziva said calmly from her position a few feet away. “He could use poison or tamper with your car or another method not before used.”
“You're not really helping, sweetcheeks.”
“I am just saying, there are many ways to kill a person.”
“And if anybody would know, it would be you.”
“What've you got from the phones and email, McGee?” Gibbs asked loudly, interrupting DiNozzo and David's side dialogue.
“Uh, not much, Boss. The only calls to or from the office phone are work related-a few calls in about their hours, whether or not customers need to make appointments, that sort of thing. A couple about whether or not their alterations or repairs are ready yet. All of the calls out were informing customers that they could pick up their jewelry at their easiest convenience, except one, about an order of loose sapphires Saul was following up on. Not much from the home phone, either. A few telemarketers called, always around dinner time, and apparently, Steiner likes to watch QVC and call in around 0400. Never to order anything; he just seems to want someone to talk to. Elsa hasn't used her cell phone at all since we've been tracing it. As far as email and the internet, someone, I'm assuming Elsa, regularly checks an on-line dating site for single, widowed, and divorced middle-aged Jews. Most of their emails are emails are business related, although Saul also regularly emails his son, an accountant in California; and his granddaughter, a freshman at UCLA.”
“I'm assuming we aren't adding desperate middle-aged men or people living three thousand miles away to our suspect list,” DiNozzo commented. Gibbs finally reached over and gave him the smack that had been building all morning. “Ouch! Thanks, Boss. I think I needed that.”
“Keep on it, McGee,” Gibbs ordered, ignoring DiNozzo's last comment. “And in the meantime, DiNozzo, keep your eyes open for crazed gun-wielding madmen.”
Chapter 38
Agent Tony DiNozzo reached for the handle of the hospital room before slowly withdrawing his hand. “Maybe I should let you go first, Probie,” he said, moving aside to allow the junior agent access.
“Oh, for God's sake, Tony, they're not going to be coming after you at a crime scene. Especially one in the middle of the hospital,” McGee said, annoyed. It had been funny at first, DiNozzo's sudden skittishness about everything he did. He began depending on Ziva or, in rare occasions, McGee, to give him rides to and from work, in case someone had tampered with his Mustang. Worried about cyanide poisoning, he had McGee tasting all of the food he had delivered to NCIS before he would take a bite, until McGee realized, later than he should have, that if it were poisoned, he'd be ingesting it as well. Since then, Tony would only eat food that he had brought in from home-leftovers from Ziva's cooking the night before, from the looks of it-which he stored locked in Abby's evidence refrigerator until it was time to be eaten. Now that they were working a major case again, almost a week after their failed surveillance of Steiner in the synagogue, it appeared that his hesitation had expanded into crime scenes. It seemed a far cry from the man who, while still recovering from the pneumonic plague, once told McGee and Kate to run up ahead before he opened a car that they knew was rigged with explosives.
“I don't know, McGoo,” DiNozzo said thoughtfully as he followed the younger man into the simple room on the oncology floor of National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. “Just think of everything they have lying around in a hospital. There have to be a thousand drugs that can be injected to cause instant-.” His words stopped abruptly as his body stiffened, his eyes rolling to the top of his head, his arms beginning to shake. McGee, his eyes wide with surprise, was about to call for help when he saw the grin beginning to form on DiNozzo's face.
“Not funny, Tony,” he scolded as DiNozzo relaxed in a fit of laughter. “Haven't you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?”
“You should have seen the look on your face, probie,” Tony replied, ignoring the second part of McGee's comment. “Come on, let's gather some evidence for Abby so we can get out of here. Hospitals give me the creeps.”
A few hours later, McGee arrived in Abby Sciuto's lab, balancing a heavy cardboard box in his arms. “I brought you a present,” he said dryly.
“Oh! Forensics evidence, how I've missed you!” Abby crooned as she hopped/ran the few steps from her position to the table where McGee had placed the box. He was going to make fun of her for the words before he realized just how long it had been since they've had a major case. Either criminals in the Navy and Marine Corps knew when Ziva and Tony were otherwise occupied with another mission, or Vance had been dealing cases out to other teams. He hoped for the director's sake that it was the former; he'd hate to imagine Gibbs' reaction if he discovered the latter.
“We gathered the sharps boxes from all of the rooms, just like you asked,” McGee continued, unwilling to head back upstairs, where DiNozzo was running a background check on a Navy nurse who had cared for six terminally-ill cancer patients who all died sooner than expected. “We also printed the rooms, which yielded a lot of results. Kinda makes you wonder how often they clean these hospital rooms.”
“Which is why I plan on dying quietly at home, already in my coffin,” Abby said, not looking up as she sorted the evidence into piles. “Either that or very abruptly in my hearse. I haven't decided for sure yet. Either way, no hospital rooms.”
“Not very many people have much of a choice in the matter, Abby,” McGee pointed out.
“Hospitals are creepy, McGee.” He thought those were ironic words coming from someone who slept in a coffin, but let it go.
“Well, you're not going to have to worry about it for long. They're going to kill you when they see you have this up,” McGee commented, studying something Abby had tacked onto the wall. She glanced over to find him facing a still photograph she had printed from the surveillance camera during Tony and Ziva's dinner with the other couples from the synagogue, almost two months before. Ziva had been perched on the armrest of the couch with Tony's arm around her waist as she leaned down to kiss him. The still had been printed from right when their lips met, and although Ziva's hair obscured most of her face, the expression on Tony's was clearly one of a man who was very happy with where he was at the moment.
“I think it's sweet,” Abby replied before turning back to her work. “Maybe I'll have it framed and give it to them as a wedding gift.”
“Abby, they're not really going to get married. The engagement ring is just for the case. Besides, what about Gibbs' rules about co-workers dating?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” she scoffed. “This coming from the guy who said they wouldn't be sleeping together while working undercover. That lasted, what, a day?” It was actually about two weeks, but McGee knew better than to argue with her. “And what is Gibbs going to do, ground them until they agree not to see each other behind the bleachers at lunch anymore? This isn't junior high, McGee. He's not going to interfere with their social lives.” The field agent was pretty sure there were other things Gibbs could do-such as reassigning one or both of the agents in question-but again, he knew better than to argue with Abby. “Besides, when are they going to see it? Ziva's never here anymore, and Tony always comes in through my office to get his lunch.”
“Yeah, he's probably afraid someone in a ski-mask and chainsaw is waiting for him in the lab entrance,” McGee scoffed. Abby turned to him with a stern expression on her face as she pointed a latex-engloved finger in his direction.
“You be nice, Timothy McGee,” she scolded. “This is a very stressful time for him. He might have a serial killer coming after him! You should be more supportive.”
“Abby, he had me taste-testing his food in case it was poisoned!”
“Well, that wasn't very smart. You could have killed, too. If he really thought it was poisoned, he should have brought it down here. I would have tested it for him.”
McGee sighed; there would be no way of explaining to her just how difficult Tony had been to work with in the last week. “Is there anything I can help you with down here?”
She shook her head, her black pig-tails flying. “Nope. I got it. I'll give you a call if something comes up. If you're looking for something to do, you should get back upstairs and find the guy who's trying to kill Tony.”
---
Ziva David was standing at the stove when she heard the sound of the door opening. “Hello, Tony,” she called out. “How was your day?” The thought of asking that question while standing in the kitchen making dinner made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. The last thing she needed was to start thinking of herself as the good little housewife.
DiNozzo, seeing the look on her face and knowing what she was thinking, couldn't help but chuckle as he kissed her on his way through the kitchen. “Fine, dear, and how was yours?” he asked with a grin. The whole conversation reminded him of The Good Wife's Guide from Redbook in the 1950's that they had found working a case a number of years ago. As always when he thought about a case with Kate, he felt that familiar pang of sadness. It had been almost four years, and he no longer felt the grief and anger he did when the loss was new, but he'd probably never get completely over the pain of losing a partner. It was something he hoped he'd never have to repeat.
Ziva gave him a quick glower and pointed her knife at the pile of vegetables on the counter, indicating that she wanted him to cut them up. “We are almost complete with the mid-course evaluations,” she informed him. Those evaluations had been keeping her from the office after lectures all week, and he knew she'd be glad when they were behind her. “You are still working a case, no?”
“Yeah,” he answered with a nod before briefly describing the case. He couldn't help but think about how much he was enjoying this, coming home to help Ziva with dinner as they talked about their day, bouncing ideas off each other. Of course, all of that would change when the mission was over and they were back to working together and dealing with the strain of being around each other literally all of the time; she would start making sarcastic comments across the bullpen about him leaving the toilet seat up, he would snap at her about the lack of sleep due to her alarm going off at 0500 when he had just returned from a late night at work an hour before. But for now, he could almost convince himself that everything would always be so nice. “So we're pretty sure it was the nurse, Ensign King. She's the only one who was involved in the care of all six patients, but we don't have any concrete evidence yet. We're hoping Abby will find something. We went to Bethesda this afternoon to check out the hospital rooms again.” He chuckled. “I have McGee convinced I'm afraid of my own shadow. It's pretty funny, actually.”
“So I guess he does not know that you are not driving because your car is in the shop for routine maintenance?”
DiNozzo shook his head with obvious glee. “I still can't believe I convinced him to try my food before I ate it,” he mused.
“I still can not believe you let anyone touch your food,” Ziva countered. “Has there been any progress on Steiner's surveillance?”
DiNozzo shrugged. “Not that I know of. I'm assuming McGee would have say by now if there was. I think I'm starting to get on his nerves.”
Ziva snorted. “As if that were not the intended goal.”
---
It was Monday before Abby found the empty insulin syringes with Ensign Jessica King's fingerprints on them in each of the sharps containers DiNozzo and McGee had collected-an amazing coincidence, considering none of the six patients was diabetic. While running the background check, DiNozzo had discovered an editorial King had written for her undergraduate newspaper about prolonged suffering of terminally-ill patients. Those two pieces of evidence seemed to be enough to convince a judge to sign an arrest warrant, and McGee headed over to Bethesda to pick up the nurse Tuesday morning. Before Gibbs could even introduce himself as he entered the interrogation room, she cracked, breaking out into sobs as she described how she was just trying to help. Her JAG seemed to think he could get her by with a loss of her nursing license, separation from the Navy, and counseling.
“What do we have from our surveillance of Steiner?” Gibbs asked out of the blue as he and McGee sat at their desks, filling out the after action reports.
“Oh,” McGee said guiltily, realizing that with the excitement of the new case, he had been neglecting to check the phone and email taps. When he opened the file on his computer, he discovered that it had been since Wednesday morning that he bothered to check. He tried to remember what he had been doing instead, but nothing came immediately to mind. “Uh, it looks like he had an international call come in late Wednesday morning, from Belgium. Probably something about a diamond order. Then there was a call from a cell phone-let me check the number... Phone's registered to Mrs. Grossman. That was at 1122 on Wednesday. The next call was-”
“Mrs. Grossman?” Gibbs interrupted. McGee glanced up to see his boss focusing in the distance, his mouth set in a frown of concentration. “Do we have audio?”
“Uh, yeah. Let me bring it up.” He clicked on something on his computer and leaned over to turn up the volume on his speakers. The voice of the rabbi's wife soon filled the small space.
“Saul, hello, it's Hedia Grossman. How are you this morning?”
“Rebbetzin,” Steiner replied in his raspy voice. “I am still old, but other than that, have no complaints. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, nothing! I was just sitting here and realized that it had been awhile since we've had a chance to chat.”
Steiner's chuckle turned into a wheeze. “Yes, I believe it has.”
“I was wondering if you were free this afternoon? We could meet at the coffee shop we usually visit, say, three o'clock?”
“The nice thing about growing old, Rebbetzin, is that people come and invade your life and try to make things easy for you. I've found that I whenever I want to be free, I am. I will meet you at three.”
McGee closed the audio clip and looked up to see the look in Gibbs' eyes that said his gut was telling him something. “I can bring up that conversation, Boss.”
“Damn it,” Gibbs muttered under his breath before glancing over at the remaining two desks in the bullpen. Both were empty. “Where the hell is DiNozzo?”
“Oh, sorry, Boss. I forgot to tell you. Ziva called while you were booking Ensign King. Her car had a flat and they decided to take it into the shop in case it was a sign of further tampering. She was going to call for a rental, but wasn't sure what time they'd be getting in.” Gibbs didn't say anything else as he went around to his desk and quickly holstered his Sig before heading for the elevators in a rush.
“Are you coming, McGee, or were you going to wait for the funeral?”
“Funeral, Boss? Whose funeral?”
“DiNozzo's, unless you get your ass out of your chair! Now, McGee!”
Chapter 39
Officer Ziva David gave a long Hebrew curse under her breath at the sight of the deflated driver's side tire. “I don't know what you just said, but it didn't sound very nice,” DiNozzo commented as he waited patiently at the passenger side door for her to unlock the car.
“The front tire is flat,” she informed him.
“The embassy couldn't get you a car with good tires?”
She bent down to examine the tire. “They are good, Tony. It has been slashed.”
He gave a low whistle. “In the best-monitored parking structure in Georgetown? Somebody must have been determined.”
“Yes,” she replied, pulling out her cell phone. “It could be a sign of further tampering.”
He frowned. “That seems a bit risky, to go after your car. Could result in both of our deaths, not just mine.”
“So could shooting Lt. Shaw with Lt. Sault in the vehicle, but that did not stop our killer. I will call to have this car towed and get a rental. In the meantime, we should probably wait inside the apartment.”
DiNozzo frowned again. “I could just call a cab to take me into NCIS,” he suggested. “Gibbs is going to be pissed if I'm not there.”
“I am sure he will be more pissed if you are killed because I let you out of my sight,” she replied bluntly. “I will call McGee and explain the situation, once we are back in the apartment.” Knowing better than to argue, he let it go and followed her to the elevators.
Inside the condo, Ziva called McGee and explained the situation, eliciting a promise that he will tell Gibbs as soon as the supervisory agent was out of interrogation. That completed, they resigned themselves to sitting and waiting for the rental car to arrive.
“Why would he slash the tire?” DiNozzo wondered out loud. “If he did something else to the car, don't you think slashing the tire would make us suspicious? I mean, it did make us suspicious.”
“Unless he figured that we would not think a tamperer would also slash a tire.”
DiNozzo put his hands on his temples. “Too much reverse psychology makes my head hurt,” he moaned.
“Besides, our killer would not know that we are expecting him,” Ziva continued to think out loud. “Maybe he is expecting that you will fix the flat tire. It could be rigged to explode.”
“The tire?”
“The car,” she elaborated.
“Then don't you think we should warn the tow-truck driver?”
“That is not a bad idea.” She again pulled out her cell phone and dialed, but when connected, spoke in rapid-fire Hebrew. DiNozzo frowned.
“Wasn't aware there were too many Hebrew-speaking towing companies in DC,” he commented after she hung up.
“That was Officer Bashan. It is an embassy car; they will take care of the towing. They will send someone with the tow truck to inspect it first.” Seeing the dubious expression on his face, she simply said, “IDF soldiers and Mossad officers know how to check a car for explosives, Tony.” He guessed he couldn't argue with that logic.
DiNozzo didn't know how much time had passed since the initial discovery of the slashed front tire, but he did know he was getting bored. Normally, being forced to stay in a confined location with Ziva would draw no complaints from him, but as she was spending her time on the phone-to her co-instructors, the embassy, other people he didn't know-that took away his primary source of entertainment. Television wasn't much help, either. Despite the upgraded satellite package the embassy sprang for, there didn't seem to be much on except soap operas and Price is Right.
Ziva was still on the phone-on the phone again? He didn't know what the proper terminology would be-and DiNozzo was idly playing a tune on the piano when the doorbell rang. Thinking it might finally be the rental car agency, he jumped up from the piano bench, calling out, “I'll get it!” as he headed for the door.
“Ziva?” The voice of Mrs. Grossman floated in from the closed door. “I'm sorry to come by unannounced, but I needed to speak to you.”
As soon as she heard those words, time seemed to move in reverse for Officer Ziva David as she remembered bits of conversations over the last ten weeks. Finally, belatedly, the pieces began to fall into place: the military training with the IDF, the work as a pharmacy assistant and later a chemical engineer, the husband's statements about the loss of Jewish culture in America... “Tony!” she called out frantically, running toward her partner. Confused, DiNozzo slowly turned to face her even as he continued to open the door.
She had just reached him when the distinctive sound of gunfire rang through the condominium complex.
---
Agent Timothy McGee was rarely one to question his boss, but this time, he was confused. As much as he tried running it through his head, he couldn't figure out for the life of him what had gotten NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs so wound up.
“Any luck with the phones, McGee?” Gibbs asked tightly as he swerved to barely avoid an oversized pickup truck, a cacophony of horns following them to the far right lane.
“Tony's just rings, and Ziva's directs to voice mail, so she's either on the phone or has it turned off.”
“And their position?”
“Uh, I'd need my computer for a GPS fix, boss,” McGee answered lamely. “But Ziva said they were waiting in her apartment for the rental car to arrive.” Gibbs swore again as he slammed on the brakes, the cars ahead not heeding the flashing red beacon or siren McGee wasn't aware the Charger had. “Uh, Boss? Why are we-”
“It's Mrs. Grossman, McGee,” Gibbs interrupted, his eyes still fixed to the road as he added the sound of the horn to the already blaring siren. “I imagine the IDF taught her how to fire a weapon and repair-or disrepair-a vehicle, and anyone with pharmacy training and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering would know how to poison somebody or cause a 'natural death' in a twenty-six-year-old graduate student.”
“And the Grossmans moved to DC from Seattle four years ago,” McGee added, remembering their confusion about the murders starting three and a half years before. Gibbs nodded grimly.
“I'm guessing she didn't start here. My gut is telling me that there's a chain of unsolved deaths of future fiancées of Jews that follows the Grossmans everywhere they lived.” He clenched his jaw as he swerved around another group of relatively slow-moving vehicles. “I'm thinking the flat tire was to keep Tony and Ziva-or at least Tony-in the apartment so she could finish him off.”
“So she's been using Steiner for information,” McGee mused, finally able to connect the phone call from the rabbi's wife to the old jeweler. Gibbs nodded again.
“She couldn't have found a better source,” he said bitterly. “A gossipy old man with a reputation for being the best designer of custom-made engagement rings in the Jewish community. He would unknowingly give her the targets, and all she had to do was kill them.” McGee shuddered at the thought, and the realization that they had unknowingly made DiNozzo the perfect target. For the first time ever, he suddenly wished Gibbs would drive faster.
---
Tony DiNozzo caught just the briefest glance at Hedia Grossman's dark eyes flashing with anger and maybe a touch of mania before everything faded to black. “Tony!” he heard Ziva cry out frantically again, just as he heard Mrs. Grossman's rapid footsteps sprinting down the hallway.
“Tony!” Ziva repeated, and slowly, his vision began to refocus. Just as her concerned face came into view, his mind finally registered the burst of pain in his left arm. He gasped in agony and fought to keep his vision from blurring again. “Tony, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he managed. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but knew that he failed miserably. “Go after her,” he finally said.
“Are you okay?” she asked, not moving from where she was crouched in front of him, her hands tightly clasped around his left arm, just above the elbow. He managed a nod that time.
“Tis but a flesh wound,” he joked, but it fell flat. He figured she wasn't much of a Monty Python fan; besides, he'd need to be missing at least one limb for that to be funny, and as far as he knew, his arm was still present. Perforated, now, but still present.
“Take off your belt,” Ziva commanded. Again, DiNozzo managed a weak smile.
“I know I'm not normally one to turn down sex, but I don't think this is the right time for that.”
“You have lost a lot of blood,” she said, ignoring his comment. “You need a tourniquet.”
“I'll do it,” he said stubbornly, using his one remaining hand to unclasp the buckle. He managed to look her directly in the eye. “Go get her.”
She nodded and kissed him hard before straightened to a standing position, turning toward the door. She turned back and glanced down at him, sitting on the floor of the entry way in a puddle of his own blood. “I love you, Tony,” she said simply. With that, she drew her Sig and ran from the apartment.
---
McGee barely registered the sudden exodus of several of the building's residents as they pulled to a screeching halt in front of Ziva's condominium complex. “Someone has a gun! Someone has a gun!” a rather hysterical middle-aged woman was screaming. McGee guessed that that was why so many people were running from the building.
Knowing that the elevators would be crowded with the excitement and hoping that they weren't too late, Agents Gibbs and McGee ran up the fifteen flights of stairs toward number 1502, relying on training and no small amount of adrenaline to make their way up without collapsing in exhaustion. “Federal agents!” McGee wheezed ineffectually as they made their way down the hallway, guns already drawn. They arrived at Ziva's door to find it hanging open, a wounded federal agent just inside.
“Took you guys long enough,” DiNozzo joked with a wince from his position on the floor, his belt tied around his left upper arm, his right hand clenched just above the elbow. “It was Mrs. Grossman, Boss.”
“We know,” Gibbs replied grimly. “Have you called for an ambulance yet?”
DiNozzo shook his head. “Phone's upstairs on the nightstand,” he admitted.
“McGee,” Gibbs commanded.
“Already on it, Boss,” the junior agent replied, his phone to his ear. Gibbs turned back to DiNozzo.
“Where's Ziva?” he asked, sudden concern in his eyes.
“She went after the good Rebbetzin,” DiNozzo replied, wincing with another wave of pain.
“Which way?”
DiNozzo looked at him as if that were the stupidest question in the world; in a way, it was. “We're on the fifteenth floor of the building, Boss. All I can tell you is that she went that way down the hall.”
“McGee, stay with him until the ambulance arrives.” Gibbs glanced down at his wounded agent before lightly smacking him in the back of the head.
“Come on, Boss! I already have a bullet hole in my arm. Are you trying to add brain damage to the list?”
“Rule number three, DiNozzo: never be unreachable.” And with that, he took off in search of his Mossad liaison and the gun-wielding wife of a rabbi.
Chapter 40
Hedia Grossman had a three-minute head-start, but the Mossad officer tailing her was almost fifteen years younger and ran at least six miles every morning. Of course, if Ziva's quick glance through the half-opened apartment door was correct, the rabbi's wife was wearing an athletic suit and tennis shoes, whereas Ziva David was wearing the full service uniform of an IDF major, complete with the heeled shoes that were perfectly sensible when walking, but left a lot to be desired as a running shoe. Whoever decided that women need to wear heels with their uniforms was an idiot, Ziva thought angrily. Military uniforms and heels do not go well together.
After running down the hallway, Ziva guessed correctly that Mrs. Grossman would choose the stairs, not wanting to risk being caught in the confines of an elevator while escaping the scene of a crime. As she entered the stairwell, the Mossad liaison heard the sound of the outside door opening and stepped up her already furious pace. Unfortunately, one could only descend a flight of stairs so quickly without causing debilitating damage to the legs or feet, and by the time she arrived at that door, the rabbi's wife was nowhere to be found.
The stairwell opened up to an alley; turn to the right after leaving the building, and you were faced with a dumpster and a chainlink fence complete with a strand of barbed wire. Turn to the left, and you saw another dumpster, a fire escape ladder, and further down, the light of a connecting road. Ziva turned to the left and ran for the road.
Just as she emerged from the alley, she caught the fleeting image of Rebbetzin Grossman ducking into a building about two blocks away, and thanked whatever god was watching over Mossad officers and their trouble-seeking NCIS partners that this particular serial killer had chosen to wear a red windbreaker; it was fairly easy to spot, even from a distance.
The building Mrs. Grossman had entered was a stereotypical office building, with different businesses occupying each of the twelve floors. Ziva quickly scanned the names on the board at the entryway, looking for a Jewish-sounding name that the rabbi's wife might seek asylum from, but nothing jumped out at her. Just as she resigned herself to searching each of the twelve floors one at a time, she caught sight of another exterior door directly across the foyer, and realized that her target had just used the building to pass through to a parallel alley. Her spirits bouyed, she ran for the door.
Because of the way the door swung open, she scanned her visual field to the right first, her gun in perfect alignment with her eyes. Not seeing anything, she stepped all the way out of the building and began her sweep to the left, finding herself face-to-face with a red-jacketed rabbi's wife holding a twenty-two in the ready position. Although many would scoff at such a small gun, Ziva knew better-the bullets may be small, but the gun didn't have much of a kick. In trained hands, it could deliver a lethal series of bullets without much difficulty, and Ziva had no doubt that the hands that currently held the weapon were very well trained. “Drop your weapon, Rebbetzin,” she ordered, her voice low.
Mrs. Grossman gave her a wicked smile that was completely without mirth. “Or what, Major? You'll shoot a rabbi's wife? I'm sure the Metro PD would love that-a foreign military officer shooting away at the leaders of the local religious community.”
“I believe you are forgetting that I have diplomatic immunity,” Ziva replied. That was a lie, but she was hoping Hedia Grossman wouldn't know that. “And considering that you just shot a federal agent, I am sure that they will understand why I did it.”
Ziva didn't think it was possible, but the smile turned even darker. “You may be upset now, Ziva, but someday, you will thank me for what I did for you.” As she picked up tempo and volume, hints of her previous Israeli accent emerged. “Now that you no longer have your Gentile to distract you, you can go back to Israel and meet a nice Jewish man.”
The Mossad officer adjusted the gun subtly in her hand. “Like Dr. Silvers?” she asked.
“Exactly!” Mrs. Grossman seemed pleased that Ziva was following her line of thought. “He still writes to me, you know. He mourned for awhile, but eventually, he began to move on. He's told me many times how happy he is with Avi. He never seemed so happy with Stephanie.”
“And Lt. Hannah Sault?” Ziva asked, taking a small step closer. Mrs. Grossman didn't seem to notice. “Do you think she is happy?”
“She will be,” the rabbi's wife said confidently. “Someday, when she is standing at the alter and her father is officiating her wedding ceremony in Hebrew, she will realize how fortunate she is.”
“So you did this to help them?”
“Exactly! To help them and to help Jewish people everywhere. Our culture is at risk of dying completely, Ziva. You may not see it so clearly in Israel, but the signs are everywhere here. People are starting to think that it is acceptable to marry outside their faith, and rabbis are even beginning to allow it! It is written clearly in Exodus that fathers have no right to give their children in marriage to foreigners, to anyone outside the nation of Israel. Because people are not heeding this command, children are being raised in homes that are not governed by Jewish laws. They are not keeping kosher with their meals or keeping the Sabbath holy. In another generation or two, there will be nobody left to sit in the synagogues on Saturdays.”
Ziva seriously doubted that, but didn't say anything as she moved another step closer. Again, the motion seemed to go by unnoticed. “And that gives you the right to take a life?” she asked, “to violate what is most sacred?”
“What I do is for the good of the Jewish people. God understands that, and is most pleased with what I have done.”
Clearly someone has delusions of grandeur, Ziva thought to herself as she again inched forward. “You made a mistake, though,” she finally said.
“I have made no mistakes,” Mrs. Grossman declared. “God is pleased with my work.”
Ziva shook her head, using that movement to disguise another step forward. “But you did,” she mocked. “That federal agent you shot? You missed. You did not kill him. It looks like you did not do me any favors after all.” Mrs. Grossman was shocked by the words, which gave Ziva the opportunity she was looking for. With one smooth motion, she lunged forward, tackling the middle-aged woman to ground. In the commotion, the small twenty-two was fired, the shot going somewhere into the building behind them. “Hedia Grossman, you are under arrest for the murders of Lt. Christopher Shaw, Dr. Stephanie Quinn, Manar al-Bashier, Scott Daltron, and Jonathan Wallace, and the attempted murder of NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo.” She didn't wear any handcuffs with her IDF uniform, but she always kept a few plastic wrist restraints in her back pocket just in case, one of which she tightened around Mrs. Grossman's wrists before pulling her back to her feet. They slowly made their way to the main road, a defeated-looking woman past her prime being moved along by a scuffed-up foreign military officer.
Agent Gibbs heard the gunshot and headed in the general direction; seeing Ziva and the restrained suspect, he put his gun away and gave his liaison a tight smile. “It is about time you showed up,” Ziva commented, unknowingly echoing DiNozzo's words. “I am beginning to think I have to do all the hard work myself.”
“Would have been here sooner if you had your phone with you.”
“I was chasing an armed suspect who had just shot a federal agent, Gibbs.” He grinned as he grabbed one of Mrs. Grossman's elbows to help walk her to the car.
“Good work, Officer David.”
“Officer David?” Hedia Grossman echoed weakly. “I thought your name was Ziva Kenig.”
“No,” Ziva said bluntly. “Mossad Officer Ziva David, liaison officer to NCIS. Next time you decide to gun down couples on major interstates, you should be more selective about your targets.”
Mrs. Grossman's face grew red with anger. “You lied to me!” she exclaimed. “You stood in the house of God and lied before a rabbi and his wife!” She stomped her foot down over Ziva's ankle just as the Mossad officer was stepping from the curb. It was a lucky shot from Grossman's point of view; not so lucky for Ziva. Gibbs flinched as he heard the popping sound that was most likely a bone cracking.
“You bitch!” Ziva spat, her eyes squeezed tightly closed in pain. With only a few steps to the car, she forced herself to continue walking, pushing down on Grossman and all but using her as a crutch. Despite the serious of the moment, Gibbs couldn't help but smile.
“You're swearing in English now,” he commented. “DiNozzo would be proud of you.”
At the mention of her partner, Ziva's eyes flew open, her pain momentarily forgotten. “Tony,” she said softly. “How is he?” As if in response, they heard the wail of an ambulance speeding away. In the excitement of the chase, Ziva hadn't heard it as it approached.
“I'm guessing on his way to the hospital right now,” Gibbs answered unnecessarily. “He was cracking jokes and ordering McGee around, so I'm sorry to say, you'll still have the same old DiNozzo for at least another day.”
There was no way to miss the smile on her face when he gave her that news.
The silver-haired man kept his target in his sights without being obvious about it, remaining far enough from the elderly man in the wheelchair to appear uninterested, but close enough to hear every raspy word the octogenarian spoke, which wasn't always easy. Judging by the crowds that surrounded him, the aging jeweler was quite the social butterfly of the congregation.
“Ah, Mr. Dinallo,” Saul Steiner spoke as he approached a younger couple standing near the back of the social hall of the synagogue. The man identified as Dinallo stopped his conversation in mid-sentence to glance down at the old man, his eyes sweeping past the observer as he did so. There was no hint of recognition in his expression before it slowly turned to a grin.
“Mr. Steiner,” Dinallo greeted. “How are you this morning?”
“Fine, fine,” Steiner said, waving off the question as his attention shifted to the attractive young woman standing by Dinallo. There was a change in the smile that crossed the jeweler's face. “And this must be the wonderful Ziva,” he said, reaching for one of the woman's hands and kissing it gently, earning him a small laugh in response. “She is even more beautiful than you described, Mr. Dinallo.”
The man observing heard Dinallo chuckle at the statement. “Ziva, this is Mr. Saul Steiner, the jeweler I was telling you about,” he introduced. She had a slightly puzzled look on her face, so her boyfriend prompted, “Where I got your watch.”
“Ah,” she said, glancing down at the gold band on her wrist before smiling over at Steiner. “I should thank you. It is a beautiful piece.”
“Oh, Mr. Dinallo here picked that one out on his own,” Steiner informed her. She smiled again and shook her head slightly.
“You are trying to give him too much credit,” she scolded lightly. “Tony does not know anything about picking out jewelry.”
“Maybe not, Ms. Ziva, but he does know his lady and knows what she would like,” Steiner replied. The silent observer was in just a position where he could see the large wink Steiner sent to Dinallo, who just smiled at him before turning that grin over to Ziva and kissing her lightly on the temple. It didn't take a trained investigator to know what that look between boyfriend and girlfriend meant.
Steiner continued to exchange pleasantries with Dinallo and the foreign woman, Ziva, before wheeling off. The man made his way to follow, but was blocked by a somewhat familiar-looking man in a well-tailored suit. “Hello,” the man said. Judging by the large cheesy smile, the man was sure he was either a lawyer or a politician. “I don't believe we've met. Senator Barry Lowe, Ohio.”
Politician, then. Not that it made much of a difference; he didn't have much use for either set. “Gunnery Sergeant Jethro Gimmel, US Marine Corps,” the man replied, the assumed identity sliding right off his tongue. “I'm in town for a week of meetings at the Pentagon before heading back to Camp Pendleton on Tuesday, so no, we haven't met.”
“Marine, eh?” Lowe asked with sudden interest while the man continued to watch Steiner in his peripheral vision. He couldn't make out everything he was saying, but the jeweler had the group of senior citizens he was talking to almost rolling with laughter. “Maybe we should go off and find some place to chat. I've been working on getting on the Defense committee in the Senate, and-”
The man cut him off with a hand raised defensively. “I'm sorry, Senator, but I make it a point not to work on Saturdays, and that includes not talking about work.”
“Of course,” Lowe replied smoothly. From the corner of his eye, the man saw Elsa Steiner begin to make her way toward her father, likely to collect him to get him home. He knew he had to shake the senator quickly, but the politician seemed to have other plans. “Listen, I don't know if you've had much time to see the sights while you've been here, seeing as you've been wrapped up at the Pentagon-”
“Actually, I've seen them,” the man interrupted again. “I was stationed out here a couple of years ago. Uh, if you'll excuse me, Senator...” He let his voice trail off as he nodded toward the restrooms.
“Ah, right,” the senator said, nodding his understanding. Before stepping aside to allow the “Marine” to pass, he expertly whipped a business card from a location the man couldn't identify. “Well, it was good talking to you, uh, Sergeant, and I just want to thank you for your service to our country. If you need anything, anything at all, don't hesitate to give my office a call or drop us an email. We members of the tribe need to stick together, right?”
“Right,” he agreed with a nod, making a mental note to ask someone what he was talking about. “It was nice to meet you, sir.” After one last handshake, Lowe finally moved aside, allowing his new acquaintance to pass. He headed in the general of the restrooms, making a wide arc through the social hall as if trying to avoid the larger crowds of people. “Excuse me,” he murmured to Elsa Steiner, making his way in front of her as she dutifully followed her father's motorized wheelchair. The man didn't even change his stride as he dropped the small item he was carrying into the pouch at the back of Saul Steiner's chair. His mission complete, he made one final stop by the restrooms before leaving as unobtrusively as he arrived.
---
By the time Agent McGee arrived at Ziva Kenig's condo with Abby Sciuto in tow, Gibbs and DiNozzo were already seated at the kitchen counter sipping coffee while Ziva was standing a few feet away preparing lunch. “Any luck?” he asked eagerly, excited about the idea of having this mission over with once and for all.
“Yeah, McGullible, we're at NCIS booking our serial killer now,” DiNozzo replied sarcastically. McGee could feel his face fall. “We've got nothing, unless you consider me and Ziva, the rabbi and his wife, and a group of men who keep their teeth in jars at night to be suspects, because that's everyone who Steiner talked to for longer than three seconds.”
“The issue of custom jewelry or engagement rings didn't come up once,” Gibbs added. “I did drop that recording do-dad you gave me into his wheelchair bag.”
“Actually, Boss, it's a microphone and transmitter package. It doesn't store any data, so it's not really a recorder. How it works is that when it's noise activated-”
“McGee.”
“Right, sorry, Boss. Not important. So, the transmitter pack has about a hundred hours of battery life, and it's only turned on when there's noise around. Assuming Steiner doesn't talk to himself in his sleep or when he's alone in his workshop, it should last a week and a half to two weeks. The microphone is strong enough to catch anything in five feet, so if he says anything about Tony's ring order in that time, we'll catch it.”
“Assuming he doesn't talk to himself in his sleep or when he's alone in his workshop,” DiNozzo muttered.
“And assuming that the transmitter works and the microphone is strong enough and this is his only wheelchair and he doesn't find the transmitter and-”
“Abby,” McGee interrupted with a frown. “We're thinking happy thoughts.”
“Oh, right. In that case, I'm sure we'll get him, Tony.” She patted DiNozzo's hand reassuringly.
“Thanks, Abs,” the senior field agent said dryly. “In the meantime, I need to keep my eyes open for a crazed gun-wielding madman who is trying to save the Jewish culture one high-class couple at a time.”
“He might not be gun-wielding, Tony,” Ziva said calmly from her position a few feet away. “He could use poison or tamper with your car or another method not before used.”
“You're not really helping, sweetcheeks.”
“I am just saying, there are many ways to kill a person.”
“And if anybody would know, it would be you.”
“What've you got from the phones and email, McGee?” Gibbs asked loudly, interrupting DiNozzo and David's side dialogue.
“Uh, not much, Boss. The only calls to or from the office phone are work related-a few calls in about their hours, whether or not customers need to make appointments, that sort of thing. A couple about whether or not their alterations or repairs are ready yet. All of the calls out were informing customers that they could pick up their jewelry at their easiest convenience, except one, about an order of loose sapphires Saul was following up on. Not much from the home phone, either. A few telemarketers called, always around dinner time, and apparently, Steiner likes to watch QVC and call in around 0400. Never to order anything; he just seems to want someone to talk to. Elsa hasn't used her cell phone at all since we've been tracing it. As far as email and the internet, someone, I'm assuming Elsa, regularly checks an on-line dating site for single, widowed, and divorced middle-aged Jews. Most of their emails are emails are business related, although Saul also regularly emails his son, an accountant in California; and his granddaughter, a freshman at UCLA.”
“I'm assuming we aren't adding desperate middle-aged men or people living three thousand miles away to our suspect list,” DiNozzo commented. Gibbs finally reached over and gave him the smack that had been building all morning. “Ouch! Thanks, Boss. I think I needed that.”
“Keep on it, McGee,” Gibbs ordered, ignoring DiNozzo's last comment. “And in the meantime, DiNozzo, keep your eyes open for crazed gun-wielding madmen.”
Chapter 38
Agent Tony DiNozzo reached for the handle of the hospital room before slowly withdrawing his hand. “Maybe I should let you go first, Probie,” he said, moving aside to allow the junior agent access.
“Oh, for God's sake, Tony, they're not going to be coming after you at a crime scene. Especially one in the middle of the hospital,” McGee said, annoyed. It had been funny at first, DiNozzo's sudden skittishness about everything he did. He began depending on Ziva or, in rare occasions, McGee, to give him rides to and from work, in case someone had tampered with his Mustang. Worried about cyanide poisoning, he had McGee tasting all of the food he had delivered to NCIS before he would take a bite, until McGee realized, later than he should have, that if it were poisoned, he'd be ingesting it as well. Since then, Tony would only eat food that he had brought in from home-leftovers from Ziva's cooking the night before, from the looks of it-which he stored locked in Abby's evidence refrigerator until it was time to be eaten. Now that they were working a major case again, almost a week after their failed surveillance of Steiner in the synagogue, it appeared that his hesitation had expanded into crime scenes. It seemed a far cry from the man who, while still recovering from the pneumonic plague, once told McGee and Kate to run up ahead before he opened a car that they knew was rigged with explosives.
“I don't know, McGoo,” DiNozzo said thoughtfully as he followed the younger man into the simple room on the oncology floor of National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. “Just think of everything they have lying around in a hospital. There have to be a thousand drugs that can be injected to cause instant-.” His words stopped abruptly as his body stiffened, his eyes rolling to the top of his head, his arms beginning to shake. McGee, his eyes wide with surprise, was about to call for help when he saw the grin beginning to form on DiNozzo's face.
“Not funny, Tony,” he scolded as DiNozzo relaxed in a fit of laughter. “Haven't you ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?”
“You should have seen the look on your face, probie,” Tony replied, ignoring the second part of McGee's comment. “Come on, let's gather some evidence for Abby so we can get out of here. Hospitals give me the creeps.”
A few hours later, McGee arrived in Abby Sciuto's lab, balancing a heavy cardboard box in his arms. “I brought you a present,” he said dryly.
“Oh! Forensics evidence, how I've missed you!” Abby crooned as she hopped/ran the few steps from her position to the table where McGee had placed the box. He was going to make fun of her for the words before he realized just how long it had been since they've had a major case. Either criminals in the Navy and Marine Corps knew when Ziva and Tony were otherwise occupied with another mission, or Vance had been dealing cases out to other teams. He hoped for the director's sake that it was the former; he'd hate to imagine Gibbs' reaction if he discovered the latter.
“We gathered the sharps boxes from all of the rooms, just like you asked,” McGee continued, unwilling to head back upstairs, where DiNozzo was running a background check on a Navy nurse who had cared for six terminally-ill cancer patients who all died sooner than expected. “We also printed the rooms, which yielded a lot of results. Kinda makes you wonder how often they clean these hospital rooms.”
“Which is why I plan on dying quietly at home, already in my coffin,” Abby said, not looking up as she sorted the evidence into piles. “Either that or very abruptly in my hearse. I haven't decided for sure yet. Either way, no hospital rooms.”
“Not very many people have much of a choice in the matter, Abby,” McGee pointed out.
“Hospitals are creepy, McGee.” He thought those were ironic words coming from someone who slept in a coffin, but let it go.
“Well, you're not going to have to worry about it for long. They're going to kill you when they see you have this up,” McGee commented, studying something Abby had tacked onto the wall. She glanced over to find him facing a still photograph she had printed from the surveillance camera during Tony and Ziva's dinner with the other couples from the synagogue, almost two months before. Ziva had been perched on the armrest of the couch with Tony's arm around her waist as she leaned down to kiss him. The still had been printed from right when their lips met, and although Ziva's hair obscured most of her face, the expression on Tony's was clearly one of a man who was very happy with where he was at the moment.
“I think it's sweet,” Abby replied before turning back to her work. “Maybe I'll have it framed and give it to them as a wedding gift.”
“Abby, they're not really going to get married. The engagement ring is just for the case. Besides, what about Gibbs' rules about co-workers dating?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” she scoffed. “This coming from the guy who said they wouldn't be sleeping together while working undercover. That lasted, what, a day?” It was actually about two weeks, but McGee knew better than to argue with her. “And what is Gibbs going to do, ground them until they agree not to see each other behind the bleachers at lunch anymore? This isn't junior high, McGee. He's not going to interfere with their social lives.” The field agent was pretty sure there were other things Gibbs could do-such as reassigning one or both of the agents in question-but again, he knew better than to argue with Abby. “Besides, when are they going to see it? Ziva's never here anymore, and Tony always comes in through my office to get his lunch.”
“Yeah, he's probably afraid someone in a ski-mask and chainsaw is waiting for him in the lab entrance,” McGee scoffed. Abby turned to him with a stern expression on her face as she pointed a latex-engloved finger in his direction.
“You be nice, Timothy McGee,” she scolded. “This is a very stressful time for him. He might have a serial killer coming after him! You should be more supportive.”
“Abby, he had me taste-testing his food in case it was poisoned!”
“Well, that wasn't very smart. You could have killed, too. If he really thought it was poisoned, he should have brought it down here. I would have tested it for him.”
McGee sighed; there would be no way of explaining to her just how difficult Tony had been to work with in the last week. “Is there anything I can help you with down here?”
She shook her head, her black pig-tails flying. “Nope. I got it. I'll give you a call if something comes up. If you're looking for something to do, you should get back upstairs and find the guy who's trying to kill Tony.”
---
Ziva David was standing at the stove when she heard the sound of the door opening. “Hello, Tony,” she called out. “How was your day?” The thought of asking that question while standing in the kitchen making dinner made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. The last thing she needed was to start thinking of herself as the good little housewife.
DiNozzo, seeing the look on her face and knowing what she was thinking, couldn't help but chuckle as he kissed her on his way through the kitchen. “Fine, dear, and how was yours?” he asked with a grin. The whole conversation reminded him of The Good Wife's Guide from Redbook in the 1950's that they had found working a case a number of years ago. As always when he thought about a case with Kate, he felt that familiar pang of sadness. It had been almost four years, and he no longer felt the grief and anger he did when the loss was new, but he'd probably never get completely over the pain of losing a partner. It was something he hoped he'd never have to repeat.
Ziva gave him a quick glower and pointed her knife at the pile of vegetables on the counter, indicating that she wanted him to cut them up. “We are almost complete with the mid-course evaluations,” she informed him. Those evaluations had been keeping her from the office after lectures all week, and he knew she'd be glad when they were behind her. “You are still working a case, no?”
“Yeah,” he answered with a nod before briefly describing the case. He couldn't help but think about how much he was enjoying this, coming home to help Ziva with dinner as they talked about their day, bouncing ideas off each other. Of course, all of that would change when the mission was over and they were back to working together and dealing with the strain of being around each other literally all of the time; she would start making sarcastic comments across the bullpen about him leaving the toilet seat up, he would snap at her about the lack of sleep due to her alarm going off at 0500 when he had just returned from a late night at work an hour before. But for now, he could almost convince himself that everything would always be so nice. “So we're pretty sure it was the nurse, Ensign King. She's the only one who was involved in the care of all six patients, but we don't have any concrete evidence yet. We're hoping Abby will find something. We went to Bethesda this afternoon to check out the hospital rooms again.” He chuckled. “I have McGee convinced I'm afraid of my own shadow. It's pretty funny, actually.”
“So I guess he does not know that you are not driving because your car is in the shop for routine maintenance?”
DiNozzo shook his head with obvious glee. “I still can't believe I convinced him to try my food before I ate it,” he mused.
“I still can not believe you let anyone touch your food,” Ziva countered. “Has there been any progress on Steiner's surveillance?”
DiNozzo shrugged. “Not that I know of. I'm assuming McGee would have say by now if there was. I think I'm starting to get on his nerves.”
Ziva snorted. “As if that were not the intended goal.”
---
It was Monday before Abby found the empty insulin syringes with Ensign Jessica King's fingerprints on them in each of the sharps containers DiNozzo and McGee had collected-an amazing coincidence, considering none of the six patients was diabetic. While running the background check, DiNozzo had discovered an editorial King had written for her undergraduate newspaper about prolonged suffering of terminally-ill patients. Those two pieces of evidence seemed to be enough to convince a judge to sign an arrest warrant, and McGee headed over to Bethesda to pick up the nurse Tuesday morning. Before Gibbs could even introduce himself as he entered the interrogation room, she cracked, breaking out into sobs as she described how she was just trying to help. Her JAG seemed to think he could get her by with a loss of her nursing license, separation from the Navy, and counseling.
“What do we have from our surveillance of Steiner?” Gibbs asked out of the blue as he and McGee sat at their desks, filling out the after action reports.
“Oh,” McGee said guiltily, realizing that with the excitement of the new case, he had been neglecting to check the phone and email taps. When he opened the file on his computer, he discovered that it had been since Wednesday morning that he bothered to check. He tried to remember what he had been doing instead, but nothing came immediately to mind. “Uh, it looks like he had an international call come in late Wednesday morning, from Belgium. Probably something about a diamond order. Then there was a call from a cell phone-let me check the number... Phone's registered to Mrs. Grossman. That was at 1122 on Wednesday. The next call was-”
“Mrs. Grossman?” Gibbs interrupted. McGee glanced up to see his boss focusing in the distance, his mouth set in a frown of concentration. “Do we have audio?”
“Uh, yeah. Let me bring it up.” He clicked on something on his computer and leaned over to turn up the volume on his speakers. The voice of the rabbi's wife soon filled the small space.
“Saul, hello, it's Hedia Grossman. How are you this morning?”
“Rebbetzin,” Steiner replied in his raspy voice. “I am still old, but other than that, have no complaints. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, nothing! I was just sitting here and realized that it had been awhile since we've had a chance to chat.”
Steiner's chuckle turned into a wheeze. “Yes, I believe it has.”
“I was wondering if you were free this afternoon? We could meet at the coffee shop we usually visit, say, three o'clock?”
“The nice thing about growing old, Rebbetzin, is that people come and invade your life and try to make things easy for you. I've found that I whenever I want to be free, I am. I will meet you at three.”
McGee closed the audio clip and looked up to see the look in Gibbs' eyes that said his gut was telling him something. “I can bring up that conversation, Boss.”
“Damn it,” Gibbs muttered under his breath before glancing over at the remaining two desks in the bullpen. Both were empty. “Where the hell is DiNozzo?”
“Oh, sorry, Boss. I forgot to tell you. Ziva called while you were booking Ensign King. Her car had a flat and they decided to take it into the shop in case it was a sign of further tampering. She was going to call for a rental, but wasn't sure what time they'd be getting in.” Gibbs didn't say anything else as he went around to his desk and quickly holstered his Sig before heading for the elevators in a rush.
“Are you coming, McGee, or were you going to wait for the funeral?”
“Funeral, Boss? Whose funeral?”
“DiNozzo's, unless you get your ass out of your chair! Now, McGee!”
Chapter 39
Officer Ziva David gave a long Hebrew curse under her breath at the sight of the deflated driver's side tire. “I don't know what you just said, but it didn't sound very nice,” DiNozzo commented as he waited patiently at the passenger side door for her to unlock the car.
“The front tire is flat,” she informed him.
“The embassy couldn't get you a car with good tires?”
She bent down to examine the tire. “They are good, Tony. It has been slashed.”
He gave a low whistle. “In the best-monitored parking structure in Georgetown? Somebody must have been determined.”
“Yes,” she replied, pulling out her cell phone. “It could be a sign of further tampering.”
He frowned. “That seems a bit risky, to go after your car. Could result in both of our deaths, not just mine.”
“So could shooting Lt. Shaw with Lt. Sault in the vehicle, but that did not stop our killer. I will call to have this car towed and get a rental. In the meantime, we should probably wait inside the apartment.”
DiNozzo frowned again. “I could just call a cab to take me into NCIS,” he suggested. “Gibbs is going to be pissed if I'm not there.”
“I am sure he will be more pissed if you are killed because I let you out of my sight,” she replied bluntly. “I will call McGee and explain the situation, once we are back in the apartment.” Knowing better than to argue, he let it go and followed her to the elevators.
Inside the condo, Ziva called McGee and explained the situation, eliciting a promise that he will tell Gibbs as soon as the supervisory agent was out of interrogation. That completed, they resigned themselves to sitting and waiting for the rental car to arrive.
“Why would he slash the tire?” DiNozzo wondered out loud. “If he did something else to the car, don't you think slashing the tire would make us suspicious? I mean, it did make us suspicious.”
“Unless he figured that we would not think a tamperer would also slash a tire.”
DiNozzo put his hands on his temples. “Too much reverse psychology makes my head hurt,” he moaned.
“Besides, our killer would not know that we are expecting him,” Ziva continued to think out loud. “Maybe he is expecting that you will fix the flat tire. It could be rigged to explode.”
“The tire?”
“The car,” she elaborated.
“Then don't you think we should warn the tow-truck driver?”
“That is not a bad idea.” She again pulled out her cell phone and dialed, but when connected, spoke in rapid-fire Hebrew. DiNozzo frowned.
“Wasn't aware there were too many Hebrew-speaking towing companies in DC,” he commented after she hung up.
“That was Officer Bashan. It is an embassy car; they will take care of the towing. They will send someone with the tow truck to inspect it first.” Seeing the dubious expression on his face, she simply said, “IDF soldiers and Mossad officers know how to check a car for explosives, Tony.” He guessed he couldn't argue with that logic.
DiNozzo didn't know how much time had passed since the initial discovery of the slashed front tire, but he did know he was getting bored. Normally, being forced to stay in a confined location with Ziva would draw no complaints from him, but as she was spending her time on the phone-to her co-instructors, the embassy, other people he didn't know-that took away his primary source of entertainment. Television wasn't much help, either. Despite the upgraded satellite package the embassy sprang for, there didn't seem to be much on except soap operas and Price is Right.
Ziva was still on the phone-on the phone again? He didn't know what the proper terminology would be-and DiNozzo was idly playing a tune on the piano when the doorbell rang. Thinking it might finally be the rental car agency, he jumped up from the piano bench, calling out, “I'll get it!” as he headed for the door.
“Ziva?” The voice of Mrs. Grossman floated in from the closed door. “I'm sorry to come by unannounced, but I needed to speak to you.”
As soon as she heard those words, time seemed to move in reverse for Officer Ziva David as she remembered bits of conversations over the last ten weeks. Finally, belatedly, the pieces began to fall into place: the military training with the IDF, the work as a pharmacy assistant and later a chemical engineer, the husband's statements about the loss of Jewish culture in America... “Tony!” she called out frantically, running toward her partner. Confused, DiNozzo slowly turned to face her even as he continued to open the door.
She had just reached him when the distinctive sound of gunfire rang through the condominium complex.
---
Agent Timothy McGee was rarely one to question his boss, but this time, he was confused. As much as he tried running it through his head, he couldn't figure out for the life of him what had gotten NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs so wound up.
“Any luck with the phones, McGee?” Gibbs asked tightly as he swerved to barely avoid an oversized pickup truck, a cacophony of horns following them to the far right lane.
“Tony's just rings, and Ziva's directs to voice mail, so she's either on the phone or has it turned off.”
“And their position?”
“Uh, I'd need my computer for a GPS fix, boss,” McGee answered lamely. “But Ziva said they were waiting in her apartment for the rental car to arrive.” Gibbs swore again as he slammed on the brakes, the cars ahead not heeding the flashing red beacon or siren McGee wasn't aware the Charger had. “Uh, Boss? Why are we-”
“It's Mrs. Grossman, McGee,” Gibbs interrupted, his eyes still fixed to the road as he added the sound of the horn to the already blaring siren. “I imagine the IDF taught her how to fire a weapon and repair-or disrepair-a vehicle, and anyone with pharmacy training and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering would know how to poison somebody or cause a 'natural death' in a twenty-six-year-old graduate student.”
“And the Grossmans moved to DC from Seattle four years ago,” McGee added, remembering their confusion about the murders starting three and a half years before. Gibbs nodded grimly.
“I'm guessing she didn't start here. My gut is telling me that there's a chain of unsolved deaths of future fiancées of Jews that follows the Grossmans everywhere they lived.” He clenched his jaw as he swerved around another group of relatively slow-moving vehicles. “I'm thinking the flat tire was to keep Tony and Ziva-or at least Tony-in the apartment so she could finish him off.”
“So she's been using Steiner for information,” McGee mused, finally able to connect the phone call from the rabbi's wife to the old jeweler. Gibbs nodded again.
“She couldn't have found a better source,” he said bitterly. “A gossipy old man with a reputation for being the best designer of custom-made engagement rings in the Jewish community. He would unknowingly give her the targets, and all she had to do was kill them.” McGee shuddered at the thought, and the realization that they had unknowingly made DiNozzo the perfect target. For the first time ever, he suddenly wished Gibbs would drive faster.
---
Tony DiNozzo caught just the briefest glance at Hedia Grossman's dark eyes flashing with anger and maybe a touch of mania before everything faded to black. “Tony!” he heard Ziva cry out frantically again, just as he heard Mrs. Grossman's rapid footsteps sprinting down the hallway.
“Tony!” Ziva repeated, and slowly, his vision began to refocus. Just as her concerned face came into view, his mind finally registered the burst of pain in his left arm. He gasped in agony and fought to keep his vision from blurring again. “Tony, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he managed. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but knew that he failed miserably. “Go after her,” he finally said.
“Are you okay?” she asked, not moving from where she was crouched in front of him, her hands tightly clasped around his left arm, just above the elbow. He managed a nod that time.
“Tis but a flesh wound,” he joked, but it fell flat. He figured she wasn't much of a Monty Python fan; besides, he'd need to be missing at least one limb for that to be funny, and as far as he knew, his arm was still present. Perforated, now, but still present.
“Take off your belt,” Ziva commanded. Again, DiNozzo managed a weak smile.
“I know I'm not normally one to turn down sex, but I don't think this is the right time for that.”
“You have lost a lot of blood,” she said, ignoring his comment. “You need a tourniquet.”
“I'll do it,” he said stubbornly, using his one remaining hand to unclasp the buckle. He managed to look her directly in the eye. “Go get her.”
She nodded and kissed him hard before straightened to a standing position, turning toward the door. She turned back and glanced down at him, sitting on the floor of the entry way in a puddle of his own blood. “I love you, Tony,” she said simply. With that, she drew her Sig and ran from the apartment.
---
McGee barely registered the sudden exodus of several of the building's residents as they pulled to a screeching halt in front of Ziva's condominium complex. “Someone has a gun! Someone has a gun!” a rather hysterical middle-aged woman was screaming. McGee guessed that that was why so many people were running from the building.
Knowing that the elevators would be crowded with the excitement and hoping that they weren't too late, Agents Gibbs and McGee ran up the fifteen flights of stairs toward number 1502, relying on training and no small amount of adrenaline to make their way up without collapsing in exhaustion. “Federal agents!” McGee wheezed ineffectually as they made their way down the hallway, guns already drawn. They arrived at Ziva's door to find it hanging open, a wounded federal agent just inside.
“Took you guys long enough,” DiNozzo joked with a wince from his position on the floor, his belt tied around his left upper arm, his right hand clenched just above the elbow. “It was Mrs. Grossman, Boss.”
“We know,” Gibbs replied grimly. “Have you called for an ambulance yet?”
DiNozzo shook his head. “Phone's upstairs on the nightstand,” he admitted.
“McGee,” Gibbs commanded.
“Already on it, Boss,” the junior agent replied, his phone to his ear. Gibbs turned back to DiNozzo.
“Where's Ziva?” he asked, sudden concern in his eyes.
“She went after the good Rebbetzin,” DiNozzo replied, wincing with another wave of pain.
“Which way?”
DiNozzo looked at him as if that were the stupidest question in the world; in a way, it was. “We're on the fifteenth floor of the building, Boss. All I can tell you is that she went that way down the hall.”
“McGee, stay with him until the ambulance arrives.” Gibbs glanced down at his wounded agent before lightly smacking him in the back of the head.
“Come on, Boss! I already have a bullet hole in my arm. Are you trying to add brain damage to the list?”
“Rule number three, DiNozzo: never be unreachable.” And with that, he took off in search of his Mossad liaison and the gun-wielding wife of a rabbi.
Chapter 40
Hedia Grossman had a three-minute head-start, but the Mossad officer tailing her was almost fifteen years younger and ran at least six miles every morning. Of course, if Ziva's quick glance through the half-opened apartment door was correct, the rabbi's wife was wearing an athletic suit and tennis shoes, whereas Ziva David was wearing the full service uniform of an IDF major, complete with the heeled shoes that were perfectly sensible when walking, but left a lot to be desired as a running shoe. Whoever decided that women need to wear heels with their uniforms was an idiot, Ziva thought angrily. Military uniforms and heels do not go well together.
After running down the hallway, Ziva guessed correctly that Mrs. Grossman would choose the stairs, not wanting to risk being caught in the confines of an elevator while escaping the scene of a crime. As she entered the stairwell, the Mossad liaison heard the sound of the outside door opening and stepped up her already furious pace. Unfortunately, one could only descend a flight of stairs so quickly without causing debilitating damage to the legs or feet, and by the time she arrived at that door, the rabbi's wife was nowhere to be found.
The stairwell opened up to an alley; turn to the right after leaving the building, and you were faced with a dumpster and a chainlink fence complete with a strand of barbed wire. Turn to the left, and you saw another dumpster, a fire escape ladder, and further down, the light of a connecting road. Ziva turned to the left and ran for the road.
Just as she emerged from the alley, she caught the fleeting image of Rebbetzin Grossman ducking into a building about two blocks away, and thanked whatever god was watching over Mossad officers and their trouble-seeking NCIS partners that this particular serial killer had chosen to wear a red windbreaker; it was fairly easy to spot, even from a distance.
The building Mrs. Grossman had entered was a stereotypical office building, with different businesses occupying each of the twelve floors. Ziva quickly scanned the names on the board at the entryway, looking for a Jewish-sounding name that the rabbi's wife might seek asylum from, but nothing jumped out at her. Just as she resigned herself to searching each of the twelve floors one at a time, she caught sight of another exterior door directly across the foyer, and realized that her target had just used the building to pass through to a parallel alley. Her spirits bouyed, she ran for the door.
Because of the way the door swung open, she scanned her visual field to the right first, her gun in perfect alignment with her eyes. Not seeing anything, she stepped all the way out of the building and began her sweep to the left, finding herself face-to-face with a red-jacketed rabbi's wife holding a twenty-two in the ready position. Although many would scoff at such a small gun, Ziva knew better-the bullets may be small, but the gun didn't have much of a kick. In trained hands, it could deliver a lethal series of bullets without much difficulty, and Ziva had no doubt that the hands that currently held the weapon were very well trained. “Drop your weapon, Rebbetzin,” she ordered, her voice low.
Mrs. Grossman gave her a wicked smile that was completely without mirth. “Or what, Major? You'll shoot a rabbi's wife? I'm sure the Metro PD would love that-a foreign military officer shooting away at the leaders of the local religious community.”
“I believe you are forgetting that I have diplomatic immunity,” Ziva replied. That was a lie, but she was hoping Hedia Grossman wouldn't know that. “And considering that you just shot a federal agent, I am sure that they will understand why I did it.”
Ziva didn't think it was possible, but the smile turned even darker. “You may be upset now, Ziva, but someday, you will thank me for what I did for you.” As she picked up tempo and volume, hints of her previous Israeli accent emerged. “Now that you no longer have your Gentile to distract you, you can go back to Israel and meet a nice Jewish man.”
The Mossad officer adjusted the gun subtly in her hand. “Like Dr. Silvers?” she asked.
“Exactly!” Mrs. Grossman seemed pleased that Ziva was following her line of thought. “He still writes to me, you know. He mourned for awhile, but eventually, he began to move on. He's told me many times how happy he is with Avi. He never seemed so happy with Stephanie.”
“And Lt. Hannah Sault?” Ziva asked, taking a small step closer. Mrs. Grossman didn't seem to notice. “Do you think she is happy?”
“She will be,” the rabbi's wife said confidently. “Someday, when she is standing at the alter and her father is officiating her wedding ceremony in Hebrew, she will realize how fortunate she is.”
“So you did this to help them?”
“Exactly! To help them and to help Jewish people everywhere. Our culture is at risk of dying completely, Ziva. You may not see it so clearly in Israel, but the signs are everywhere here. People are starting to think that it is acceptable to marry outside their faith, and rabbis are even beginning to allow it! It is written clearly in Exodus that fathers have no right to give their children in marriage to foreigners, to anyone outside the nation of Israel. Because people are not heeding this command, children are being raised in homes that are not governed by Jewish laws. They are not keeping kosher with their meals or keeping the Sabbath holy. In another generation or two, there will be nobody left to sit in the synagogues on Saturdays.”
Ziva seriously doubted that, but didn't say anything as she moved another step closer. Again, the motion seemed to go by unnoticed. “And that gives you the right to take a life?” she asked, “to violate what is most sacred?”
“What I do is for the good of the Jewish people. God understands that, and is most pleased with what I have done.”
Clearly someone has delusions of grandeur, Ziva thought to herself as she again inched forward. “You made a mistake, though,” she finally said.
“I have made no mistakes,” Mrs. Grossman declared. “God is pleased with my work.”
Ziva shook her head, using that movement to disguise another step forward. “But you did,” she mocked. “That federal agent you shot? You missed. You did not kill him. It looks like you did not do me any favors after all.” Mrs. Grossman was shocked by the words, which gave Ziva the opportunity she was looking for. With one smooth motion, she lunged forward, tackling the middle-aged woman to ground. In the commotion, the small twenty-two was fired, the shot going somewhere into the building behind them. “Hedia Grossman, you are under arrest for the murders of Lt. Christopher Shaw, Dr. Stephanie Quinn, Manar al-Bashier, Scott Daltron, and Jonathan Wallace, and the attempted murder of NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo.” She didn't wear any handcuffs with her IDF uniform, but she always kept a few plastic wrist restraints in her back pocket just in case, one of which she tightened around Mrs. Grossman's wrists before pulling her back to her feet. They slowly made their way to the main road, a defeated-looking woman past her prime being moved along by a scuffed-up foreign military officer.
Agent Gibbs heard the gunshot and headed in the general direction; seeing Ziva and the restrained suspect, he put his gun away and gave his liaison a tight smile. “It is about time you showed up,” Ziva commented, unknowingly echoing DiNozzo's words. “I am beginning to think I have to do all the hard work myself.”
“Would have been here sooner if you had your phone with you.”
“I was chasing an armed suspect who had just shot a federal agent, Gibbs.” He grinned as he grabbed one of Mrs. Grossman's elbows to help walk her to the car.
“Good work, Officer David.”
“Officer David?” Hedia Grossman echoed weakly. “I thought your name was Ziva Kenig.”
“No,” Ziva said bluntly. “Mossad Officer Ziva David, liaison officer to NCIS. Next time you decide to gun down couples on major interstates, you should be more selective about your targets.”
Mrs. Grossman's face grew red with anger. “You lied to me!” she exclaimed. “You stood in the house of God and lied before a rabbi and his wife!” She stomped her foot down over Ziva's ankle just as the Mossad officer was stepping from the curb. It was a lucky shot from Grossman's point of view; not so lucky for Ziva. Gibbs flinched as he heard the popping sound that was most likely a bone cracking.
“You bitch!” Ziva spat, her eyes squeezed tightly closed in pain. With only a few steps to the car, she forced herself to continue walking, pushing down on Grossman and all but using her as a crutch. Despite the serious of the moment, Gibbs couldn't help but smile.
“You're swearing in English now,” he commented. “DiNozzo would be proud of you.”
At the mention of her partner, Ziva's eyes flew open, her pain momentarily forgotten. “Tony,” she said softly. “How is he?” As if in response, they heard the wail of an ambulance speeding away. In the excitement of the chase, Ziva hadn't heard it as it approached.
“I'm guessing on his way to the hospital right now,” Gibbs answered unnecessarily. “He was cracking jokes and ordering McGee around, so I'm sorry to say, you'll still have the same old DiNozzo for at least another day.”
There was no way to miss the smile on her face when he gave her that news.