Nuclear Family

25

Tony didn't want to answer the ringing phone in his pocket.

His little girl was gone, and nothing else mattered.

But it keep ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing, and finally it was just too much and he had to make the ringing stop.

"What?"

"DiNozzo. They stopped the plane."

"They stopped...?"

"They stopped the plane. We're on our way."

"They stopped the plane," Tony said weakly. He looked at Ziva. "They stopped the plane."

She jumped to her feet.

No sooner had they given thought to sprinting after the plane than a car skidded up beside them.

"Hop in," McGee said.

Gibbs barely gave them time to clamber into the backseat before he was speeding down the tarmac.

"How'd you get out here, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Phoned a friend." He slammed on the brakes, popped the gearshift into park. "Go."

He jumped out of the car, Ziva on his heels.

By time they reached the plane, the ground crew was already driving up with their portable stairs.

The moment they had the stairs in place and the door opening, Ziva was there, pushing her way into the plane.

***

"This man, where?" she demanded, shoving Rechter's photo into the flight attendant's face.

"I—I don't—"

"Where is he? He has a little girl with him. She is five, she is—"

"Row 28," a second flight attendant said. "Right in front of the air marshal."

Ziva let out a sigh of relief. The marshal would already be in the loop.

She started forward again, more slowly than before.

There.

She could see Rechter, peering around the passenger in front of him.

He saw them. His eyes widened.

Then he grabbed Tali from the seat beside him, made to run for the bathroom at the back of the plane.

But then a giant of a man in the row behind him, surely the air marshal, stood up, blocking his path. "Adar Rechter," he said. "Stop."

Rechter turned back to face Ziva, quickly shifting Tali in his hold. "One more step, Ziva. Just one more step."

Tali wriggled in his arms. "Ima!"

"Adar, do not do this. It is over now. Put Tali down."

He fixed his hand over Tali's throat. "One more step, and your little girl stops breathing."

"Adar, please," Ziva whispered.

Rechter stared at her. "'Please'? That is all you can say?"

"You do not have to do this. You do not want to do this. It is over, no matter what you do. It is finished now. Please... just think about your little boy, your Mattias."

His face twisted. "Mattias! He is—My boy is why we are here!"

"I know. And there is not a day that will go by that I do not regret what happened to him. But that was not me, Adar. Nor was it my father. He was not killed on an order, Adar. It was an accident, a horrible mistake. You and I both know—"