zabby | BLACK ORCHID (11/13), GIBBS/ZIVA (NC-17)

Title: Black Orchid
Author: Victoria (

starshines)
Fandom:NCIS
Genre: Het
Pairing:Gibbs/Ziva
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Last Man Standing, this actually occurs post LMS
Summary: Someone's out for Ziva. Will Gibbs be able to find out who before its too late to save Ziva?
Warnings: Reference to rape and torture, steamy love scene
Disclaimer: NCIS, all characters belong to the big D.B. Though I might wish otherwise...
Feedback: Yes, please! Love constructive criticism, just be nice. It's my first.
Special thanks and love to Bree for the beta!

Chapters: Prologue / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Epilogue

Chapter 10

It was almost time for this all to end. Soon. Soon, this would close and the future would be laid out before them all. Peace at last. But first the waiting must take place. Enough waiting must happen to ensure the rest of the NCIS agents’ presence.

They would search, and they would find. Enough clues were left behind for that. All they must do is follow what was left, follow the evidence, follow the name.

But Abby was here now. Here in this dungeon. She would not be able to help them by following the evidence. And she was the best for that. Though competent workers were left behind to dissect the pieces, she would have done it faster and more completely. Alas, she was tied to the bed now.

So, more time must be given. More time must be allowed for Gibbs and DiNozzo and McGee to follow the trail.

They were very good investigators. They would find this location.

And they would come. They would come to the darkened hell beneath the ground. They would come and see what he was all about. But they will not be able to stop what was already inevitable.

Ziva would die. And Abby would remain with him forever. The plans were already in motion. There would be little chance of stopping them. And the plans included the deaths of the entire NCIS team.

------------------------------------

Abby was scared now. Well, at least more scared than she was before. The hope she had seen earlier was gone; a fluke. When she had looked at Ziva, in that moment, she had thought her friend was coming out of whatever place her fear had trapped her in. Abby had seen anger and rage in the other woman’s eyes. But now that was gone. And with that, Abby’s hope.

All that was left now was fear. Fear for her, and what her abductor had in store. Fear for Ziva, who was sitting in a corner, her dead soul showing through her eyes. Fear for the rest of the team.

When they came here, they would be walking into a trap. Before Raub had left, he had said as much. It was the only reason she had been left alone so far. He had to set up the traps for her friends, before he could see to her. He wanted to make sure that his time with her would be uninterrupted.

What will Ziva do then? Will she stay there, broken? Or will she try to protect me from the same fate he has given her?

If Ziva did try to protect her, Abby feared that the outcome would only be defeat for her friend. During her own abduction, Ziva had been starved, tortured, weakened both physically and mentally. Abby couldn’t hope that Ziva would have enough strength, body and mind, to stop what was going to happen.

Abby was scared.

------------------------------------

He couldn’t stand it anymore. The waiting. The endless torture as he played the morning over and over in his head. What could he have done differently? Why wasn’t there more protection? Why hadn’t he thought of the bastard impersonating an FBI agent? Damnit, why hadn’t he thought of all that could go wrong?!

Gibbs watched as the remaining two agents tossed ideas back and forth; neither making any progress. They argued scenarios, tossed around possible ideas for their location. Nothing seemed to fit. Raub still remained the unknown variable.

Standing up quickly, he growled out, “I’m getting coffee. DiNozzo, take a couple field agents and go find Raub’s last known location. You know the drill. McGee, call Fornell and get a couple of the computer geeks from the FBI over here. We can’t trust our own right now.”

With that, he stormed out of the bullpen and towards the nearest coffee cart that sold the only coffee he could stand, outside of his own. McGee and Tony gave each other a worried look. The situation was growing steadily worse. But at least now they had jobs to do. Together they gave a half-voiced “Oh it, Boss,” as Tony grabbed his pack to leave and Tim snatched the phone.

------------------------------------

As Tony called out “NCIS, we have a warrant,” another agent broke through the door and they all swarmed the area. After they cleared all the rooms, Tony told the other agents to clear the grounds. Though it would be more work, he would take care of the insides himself. He owed that to Abby and to Ziva.

As he started to process the living room, Tony found a collection of advertisements for buildings and warehouses. Before bagging them, he took pictures of each one, with both his camera and his cell. Attaching text to the picture, asking for McGee to look into Raub’s possible purchasing of property, he sent the message and moved on.

Moving into the backrooms, what he found sent shivers through him. He had been scared before, but now Tony was terrified. Taking a deep breath, he entered the first small room and began shooting pictures, bagging evidence.

This room was dedicated to Ziva. There were pictures everywhere: pictures of her at work, with friends, at the gym, in the pool, lying in the hospital bed, lying in Gibbs’ arms, even pictures of Gibbs and Ziva…

“Yikes, didn’t know that was happening. Can’t even tease them about Rule 12…” he grumbled to himself.

The pictures were in sequence, following a time line. And as they went further along, as they included more and more of the team, red X’s began to appear. They became darker and even more jagged as the timeline grew older.

Moving into Abby’s room, Tony noted in his notebook that this room was less “developed” than the other. He wrote down “less time in this obsession.” But here the red X’s became more violent, dug through the paper and into the wall.

Tony’s gut burned with the knowledge that when they went after Abby and Ziva, Raub would be waiting. He wanted to kill the entire team now.

Picking up the phone, he dialed Gibbs as he raced out the door.

------------------------------------

After grabbing his coffee, Gibbs decided he had to see Ducky. He needed to get the other man’s opinion. Riding in the elevator, he grimaced at the dent in the elevator, knowing he’d hear about it from the Director later.

Seeing his old friend putting away a body, Gibbs strode determinedly into Autopsy, heading straight for the other man.

“Hey, Duck. I need you to do to a profile Raub. I’m having a…hard time getting my mind around this.” He didn’t want to admit, not even to Ducky, how hard it was on him having the two missing, especially these two.

Though Gibbs didn’t say it, Ducky knew what Jethro was going through. He didn’t generally show his emotions or voice his feelings. But the two of them had been working together for so long, Ducky could still read him. Besides, it wouldn’t be too hard to guess how he was feeling in this situation.

Motioning Gibbs to an empty chair, Ducky took his place in the one opposite and began to think it through aloud.

“Other than being completely insane, he wants to be acknowledged for his brilliance. It wasn’t enough for him to have Ziva to himself, but he had to make sure you and the team knew about it. He left you clues, but not enough for you to do much with, for example the hair.

“As for why he chose Ziva and then Abby, there must have been some instance, some moment, where in passing they drew his attention. It could have been anything: a smile, a look, a polite email requesting aid. It could have even been something one of the ladies said to another in his vicinity. All it took was that one moment to ensnare him. And from there, his obsession built.”

Taking a breath, he continued on to the final part. “He would want some place where he could have them all to himself; someplace private where he could alter the insides to his preference. In there, he would have created his own world, a world dedicated to the domination of first Ziva, and now Abby.”

Before Ducky could add anything more, Gibbs heard his cell ringing. Seeing DiNozzo’s name on the caller id, he stood up as he opened his cell. “Thanks Duck,” he said abruptly as he left.

“What is it DiNozzo? Talk slower.”

------------------------------------

“Boss,” McGee exclaimed, jumping out of his chair as he saw Gibbs come through the elevator. “Boss, I think I’ve got something,” he said excitedly.

“Not the something that I’ve got, McInterruptus,” Tony called as he interrupted the other agent.

“But Tony…” McGee tried, but Tony was already plowing ahead.

“Boss,” Tony began, “the bastard had these two rooms, dedicating to first Ziva, then Abby.”

He tossed the USB drive to McGee, who begrudgingly pulled up the pictures. Using the clicker, Tony started going through the pictures of the house. He talked through them, showing them the timeline. Then he got to his main point. “Boss, I think he’s gunning for us now.”

Opening up the picture of the entire team at lunch with the jagged red X’s cut into the photo, Tony waited for Gibbs’ reaction.

“Good job, DiNozzo. He’ll probably have traps set up for us when we find them.” Regardless of what anyone had told him, he had no doubt he would find them and bring his girls home. They were his.

“What is it, McGee?” Gibbs’ usual mood had become more agitated and surly the longer they had gone without a significant break in the case.

“McGee!” he shouted when the other agent failed to respond.

“Boss, I think I’ve found where he may be keeping them.” Dashing to the plasma, he grabbed the remote from Tony and pulled up a bank statement. “I was looking for any records of Agent Raub’s credit activities, but I came up with nothing.” At Gibbs’ audible growl, McGee started talking faster.

“No credit cards, rental properties, nothing. Other than his NCIS paycheck, of course. On his bank statements you can see that every month for the past five years, an automatic deposit was made, his paycheck, and then the next day $2000 was withdrawn, leaving a minimal amount in that account.”

“His cell phone was work issued, but no calls were ever made. So, I concluded that he either didn’t call anyone, or he had a pre-paid cell phone for personal use.”

“McGee, what the hell does this have to do with finding Ziva and Abby!?” Gibbs was reaching his breaking point. The longer they went without finding them, the more likely Gibbs would end up finding them dead in some ditch. The worst-case scenarios were plowing through his head. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He had to find them!

Seeing Gibbs’ growing agitation, McGee moved on. Next he pulled up a word document where he had been translating a single word on.

“Ok, here’s where the weird part comes in, or at least the desperate part. Abby and I always play these word games on email. She’ll send me a word or two, and I’ve got to figure out what she’s telling me or where she wants to meet for lunch. Sometimes, the word will be scrambled. Sometimes, the word will be translated. And because Raub has been copying and watching our computers, I was desperate enough to try to use our games to figure this out.”

Enlarging the top portion of the document, it showed the translation of Raub’s name. “His last name is German for robbery or predator. Using that word, I searched for any business or building containing that word or a connotation of it. I found 17 possible matches in a 20 mile radius of where Ziva was found.”

Moving down to the lower half, the screen showed McGee’s work on scrambling Raub’s name. “There were several possibilities using his name: Ruab, Arub, Urab…”

“McGee! Get to the point!”

“The only business of those 17 matches that contains with those possible letters is…” He clicked one final time to a lease agreement and a picture of an old warehouse, “is Predator and Bug Elimination, leased by an S.A. Baur, otherwise known as Special Agent Raub. The total cost for the mortgage of the building was $2,000 a month; the exact amount Raub has been pulling out of his bank account for the last five years.

“I requested a warrant for the lease agreement so we can test for prints and for the warehouse itself. They’re on their way from legal, Boss.”

As he said his final statement, McGee saw one of the agents from legal running towards them. “Boss, its here!”

“Great work, Tim. Call DiNozzo. Tell him to meet us there. Grab your gear. Let’s end this.”

------------------------------------

It was almost time. The feeling was in the area, a dank smell permeated the basement. It was almost time.