Tikvah Ch.8

'According to records, her name is Emily Michels. She's 26 and born in Virginia. No history of any criminal activities, but ten grand popped up in her bank account the day before yesterday,' McGee rapidly informed Gibbs as they stood in front of the large computer screen with Emily's photo in the bullpen. 'From the security footage, we can see that she entered Ziva's room about 15 minutes before…' he trailed off. Gibbs nodded understandingly, knowing what he meant without him having to say it.

'Ellie, go pick her up and bring her in for interrogation with McGee. I'm going to go check on Tony and see if he knew who she was,' Gibbs ordered, already at the elevator doors by the time he finished speaking.

'Boss?' McGee called out, a hint of uncertainty colouring his voice. Gibbs whirled around to face him, an eyebrow raised. 'Well, what is it, McGee?' he probed impatiently.

'Just… just tell Tony that I hope Ziva gets better soon? I... I'm glad he's back,' McGee said hesitantly. Gibbs felt himself soften, and he berated himself mentally for being so insensitive about McGee's feelings in the whole situation. After all, McGee, Tony, and Ziva had been thick as thieves when they all worked here, and it was only natural that he would be worried about his friends.

'You can tell him that yourself tonight,' Gibbs said gruffly. He entered the gaping mouth of the elevator, and McGee watched as it closed behind him.

Standing with his hand on the doorknob of Ziva's room, Gibbs had to force himself to step inside. After the scare she had given them yesterday, he found himself very reluctant to head into the room, not knowing how Ziva would be. She had already looked bad enough before the incident to shake him to the core, but now? What if she looked even worse? Shaking his head, Gibbs turned the handle and pushed the door open.

He let out a small sigh of relief as he took in Ziva's small frame in the bed. She was still comatose and surrounded by snaking tubes and bleeping machines, but at least she did not look any worse. Hearing a small whine coming from the corner of the room, Gibbs turned to find a stubborn, sulking Tali seated on the chair with her father squatting in front of her. As he watched, Tony tried to coax her into eating a spoonful of neon-yellow macaroni and cheese, no doubt purchased from the hospital cafeteria.

'She's not eating?' Gibbs asked as he closed the door behind him. Tony shrugged and answered wearily, 'She keeps telling me she isn't hungry.'

Gibbs gave a nod of acknowledgement before getting straight to the point. 'You know this woman?' he asked, shoving a photo of Emily under his nose. Tony took a long look at her and shook his head. 'Doesn't seem familiar,' he said grimly, standing up. 'This the person who tried to kill Ziva?'

'Don't even think about it, DiNozzo,' Gibbs warned, pushing him down into the chair next to Tali. She chose to ignore the two of them, opting instead to hop out of her own chair and sit on the bed next to her mother.

Tony gritted his teeth, getting back up. 'She did this to Ziva! I won't let her get away with it.'

'DiNozzo, calm yourself. Getting her - that's not your job. All you have to do is focus on looking after Ziva and your little girl,' Gibbs said firmly. Tony sank back down into his seat, deflated.

'Damn good job that I'm doing,' he muttered bitterly. 'I can't even get my own daughter to eat.'

Gibbs took a long look at his former protégé, only now noticing the air of exhaustion rolling off him in waves. Stress and fear were etched in the lines that marked his forehead, and he looked more haggard than he remembered. Anyone could tell that Tony was going to crumble under the immense pressure sooner or later.

'Let me take Tali for a few days,' Gibbs offered quietly.

Tony's head snapped up in alarm. 'Boss, if someone is after Ziva, they may target Tali too,' he lowered his voice as he spoke, looking anxiously at his daughter across the room. She remained blissfully unaware of the danger of the situation, only knowing that her mother was still healing in her sleep. Even now, she was carefully balanced on the edge of the bed to avoid the machinery, whispering Hebrew into her mother's ear.

'Exactly. She'd be a lot safer at NCIS, and you need to stay here to protect Ziva. There's already been one attempt on her life; who's to say there won't be anymore?' Gibbs reasoned with him. 'Tali will be well-protected at NCIS.'

Tony was torn. On one hand, he knew better than most people how secure the NCIS building could be, and he was absolutely certain that Tali would come to no harm there. On the other hand, he desperately wanted his whole family to be together at this time of crisis. He knew this desire was irrational. Tali's safety could only be assured if he sent her away temporarily. And if Tali had to leave him and his wife, there was no one he trusted more with her than his old boss and his old probie.

Tony called his daughter over to them. 'Tali, you're going to stay with Grandpa Gibbs for a few days, alright?' he asked the little girl, kissing her on the crown of her head.

'But what about you and Ima?' Tali asked petulantly. She pouted and crossed her arms, not wanting to be parted from her parents.

'I'll stay here with Ima for a few days,' Tony said, running his hand through his daughter's tangled curls in an attempt to soothe her.

Tali shook her head stubbornly. 'Then I want to stay here, too,' she insisted, her brow furrowed.

'I know, Tali, but it's not good for you to stay here for too long. There are lots of bad germs here that can make you sick, and you don't like being sick, do you?' Tony asked her gently. Tali shuddered and made a face as she recalled the horrid discomfort of chicken pox, which she had gotten just last year. Besides, staying at Grandpa Gibbs' wouldn't be that bad. Last time she was there, she had spied a huge jug of maple syrup at the very back of the refrigerator, calling out to be poured on a stack of fluffy pancakes.

'I can call you every day?' Tali asked, already imaging the sweet aroma of tomorrow's breakfast. Tony nodded, knowing she was already sold on the idea. 'You can call me whenever you want to,' he reassured her.

After a long pause to draw out the suspense, Tali answered with a nonchalant 'okay'. She flitted over to give Ziva a kiss on the cheek and granted Tony a hug before slipping her small hand into Gibbs'.

'I'm ready,' she announced brightly. Gibbs, unable to help himself, smiled at her antics.

'Be a good girl for Grandpa Gibbs, Tali,' Tony reminded as the two of them headed out the door, and he saw her nod and grin before they disappeared from his line of sight.

Walking over to the hospital bed, he sat down and took his wife's hand in his again. He smiled to hide the sadness lurking in the depths of his eyes. 'You should see her with Gibbs, Ziva. The way he's around her, no one would think that they've only known each other for a couple of days.'

Emily tilted back her chair until it was balanced precariously on two legs. She remained calm and collected in spite of her current location, directing a small, lazy smirk towards her reflection in the two-way mirror. It did not really matter if someone was watching her behind the pane of glass; but if they were indeed watching, she wanted it to be clear that she was the one in control here.

The metal door to the interrogation room slammed opened with an enormous bang, startling Emily from her thoughts. Other than a slight twitch of her knee, she managed not to show any outward signs of shock at Gibbs' sudden entrance. She looked defiantly into Gibbs' eyes and her pulse quickened with excitement, her mind already debating how to spend the promised sum of money she would receive if she extracted herself from this situation unscathed. Perhaps she would treat herself with that exquisite pale cream handbag she had seen yesterday.

Gibbs' lip curled upon seeing her, and he threw her file forcefully onto the table before sitting down on the chair opposite to her. He met her smug glaze with a fierce glare of his own. Red hot anger pulsated through his veins as he thought of how she had almost taken his daughter away from him again.

His thoughts drifted to the little girl who so resembled Ziva. He had dropped her off at Abby's lab beforehand, where she had been immediately fascinated with the colourful chemicals and shiny equipment. He had never seen a more eager look on a child's face than when the bubbly forensic scientist promised Tali that they would create 'mountains of slime' together in the lab.

Gibbs imagined how the light in her bright brown eyes would dim if Michels had succeeded in her task, and how she would react once he told her she would never get to see her mother again. Channelling his fury into cold controlled precision, he leaned forward, his fingers laced together in front of him. Now was not the time to let rage drive his actions.

'Why?' His voice was deceptively soft, yet an undercurrent of coiled tension lurked beneath the surface.

'Why what?' Emily retorted, leaning back completely in her chair to show her interrogator she was not intimidated. She was aware that she was playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man, but the thrill she got from the adrenaline rush was well worth the risk.

Gibbs exploded. 'Why did you do it?' he shouted, slamming his fist onto the table.

Emily almost wanted to laugh out loud as she savoured the outrage and irritation displayed on his face. She had no idea that this would be so entertaining to watch. 'I have no idea what you're talking about, sir,' she smirked, crossing her arms in front of her.

'We have proof, Miss Michels,' Gibbs said, his face now a stony mask. He yanked out the documents from her file and spread them out across the table. Emily scanned the pages quickly, her heart skipping a beat as she recognized her name above her bank transaction records, which showed the ten-grand deposit. Her eyes darted up to meet Gibbs' as he laid down the most incriminating piece of evidence - screenshots from the security tape footage which showed a person entering and leaving Ziva's room. The face was slightly blurry from the low resolution of the camera, but if one squinted they could easily tell it was her.

'This doesn't prove anything. That person in the photo can literally be anyone,' Emily insisted. The evidence was too weak for them to charge her with this.

Gibbs smiled humourlessly and pulled out one final image from the file. He slammed it down in front of her, watching as she jumped at the sudden noise. 'Those are your prints on the IV,' he told her, jabbing at the clearly dusted print on the IV line. 'You don't work at the hospital. You don't know the victim. There is no reason you should ever come in contact with her IV. Who told you to do this?'

'What makes you think someone made me?' Emily asked him rhetorically, dropping the innocent act. She knew she had lost the game the second he showed her the picture of the print, but why the hell couldn't she have a little fun annoying him further?

'I won't ask you again. You will tell me why you did this,' Gibbs hissed at her. Emily shook her head mockingly at how predictable he was, at how easily he could be riled up. 'Is it money? Jealousy?' he pursued, looking like he was on the verge of murdering her if she refused to answer.

Emily couldn't hold back her chuckles any longer; her peals of delighted laughter echoed around the room. She knew they had very little to go on, but she could not believe how much they did not know.

'You really have no idea, do you, Agent Gibbs?' Emily smiled condescendingly across the table at room, enjoying his surprised expression. There was no way that she should have known his name. 'This goes much higher than you know.'

Growling at herself in frustration, she fed the photo of Emily Michels' beaming face to the shredder and watched with grim satisfaction as it was cut into small pieces of confetti. Hiring her had been a mistake, a rare oversight on her part. Her carefully constructed plan had fallen apart like a house of cards thanks to Michels' arrogance, and she did not take well to failure.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, she opened the window, lit a match, and dropped it into the box of the shredder. Ribbons of flame consumed the confetti, and the roaring heat devoured the remains of Emily Michels until all that was left were the ashes.

Relaxing slightly, she smiled and turned back to her paperwork, humming as she did so. After all, the loss of Michels was only a minor setback in the grand scheme of things, and the incident had served to teach her an important lesson. Never again would she entrust incapable, inexperienced imbeciles with her tasks. No, next time she would be much more careful.

Ziva David would pay for what she did.

A/N: Ta da, so here is another chapter for all of you to enjoy. As usual, PLEASE REVIEW! Work has been really tough lately and your reviews always help cheer me up after a long day.

Zoe tabbycat