Rule 39: There Is No Such Thing As Coincidence (Tony DiNozzo Love Story)

Eli David

Gibbs's POV

Walking down the steps, Erin's soft steps follow behind. Flipping the light over the workbench, I grab the bottle of bourbon and two jars. Erin takes her drink and sits on the stool.

"Start talking."

She sighs and tucks a hand into her side, wincing lightly and taking a sip as she looks at the bones of a boat behind me.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning," I say, maybe just a little too harshly but I need answers.

"January 2003, I got a contract for Ari Haswari. It got sent to me from Joe by way of Lance Corporal Robert O' Connor, "Bobby Boom" we called him. He was our bomb expert, not from experience but from sheer intrigue. Anyway, I met up with him in Prague at Hotel Pod Vezi. It was an exchange pick up, I never saw O'Connor. The file was delivered to me with my room service, the gun I used in the assassination of Arlette Vidal and Aubrey Olivier was taken under my room service from breakfast.

"The contract was from the CIA, the basic information was there: name, photo, family, aliases. Ari Haswari, born 1969 to Dr. Hasmia Haswari and Dr. Benjamin Weinstein a.k.a. Eli David. Half-brother to Ziva and Tali David, father known as Eli David and mother Rivka David. At eighteen, Ari joined the Israeli Army and shortly thereafter joined Mossad. At twenty-five, Ari graduated from Edinburgh Medical College where he then did his post-graduate work at the Edinburgh Center for Infectious Diseases. According to a Dr. Martin Sedgewick, he described Ari as a brilliant ladies's man. Some time after Ari left and chose to work with his mother at a local clinic in the Gaza strip. In early 2000, Ari's mother, Dr. Hasmia Haswari, was killed during a retaliatory missile strike from Israel."

"Why didn't you take the contract?"

"Didn't pay well enough and there wasn't much to go on. There was "speculative" work that Ari was a double agent, being a Mossad mole inside Hamas and working alongside al-Qaeda and numerous smaller terrorist groups. That was it, "speculative". I mean a blind man could see that he was a double agent by all accounts, but if Ari Haswari turned up dead suddenly with no means to why he was killed, well that could make things a lot more difficult and with only $250,000 as the price. It'd be more trouble than what he was worth. I sat on it for a few days debating if I wanted to risk the trouble, did a bit more research, but subsequently I contacted Joe and told him I was going to pass. He said it was no problem and to proceed with the Ivann case."

"So that's it?"

She turns and looks at me evenly. "It was, until I got it again March 2005. Paid a little more, but that's not why I was a little more intrigued then.""

"Why's that?"

"It didn't come from Joe. The contract came from Mossad, assigned by a deputy director of Mossad."

I stare at her and it clicks.

"His father."

She raises a brow and takes a sip of her drink.

"Why'd he want him dead?"

"Eli David had someone murdered. Ari and numerous people had debated and rumored that the retaliatory missile strike was related to David, but there wasn't any evidentiary support. At least where they were looking," she says.

"You found something?" I ask.

She scoffs and takes a sip as she looks at the boat.

"Well?"

"I got audio and visual."

"Of?"

"A confession from Eli David himself having ordered the missile strike. He wasn't only trying to kill Dr. Haswari, he was trying to kill his son."

"So he put a price on Ari's head to have him killed. And you didn't take it. Twice!"

I stand and pace.

"Anyone could have taken it Gibbs, I wouldn't have been the only one Claxton offered the bid to. There was twelve others that could have killed him and taken the money. Hell Joe could have taken it, but no one did. You can't put Kate's murder just on me. Doing so only makes me the patsy."

"You could have gotten him and I wouldn't have lost a great agent," I reply.

"I could have but then hell would have came down on me. You think David was going to hire someone to kill his bastard son only to let his hired gun live?" She laughs. "No, I would have been shot dead, imprisoned, or worse just to keep my silence."

I turn and look at her as she puts her drink down.

"Besides you got your revenge. You got to watch Ari die before your eyes. Tell me, when are you going to cash in that favor to Ziva for saving your life?" She walks away and up the stairs as I follow her with a stare.