Tim shielded his eyes from the sun as he climbed from the back of the MCRT van. It was early on Saturday morning, and Gibbs called them all to a crime scene. As he approached the scene with the camera bag and crime scene kit, Tony cut him off and snatched the camera bag.

"You're on bag and tag," he said irritably.

Too tired to argue, Tim simply nodded and knelt down next to the body to examine it for evidence. It was the body of a young female petty officer. A runner had spotted her on the shore of the Potomac, and called 911. Tim pulled on some gloves and started his investigation. He bagged a few fibers from her clothing, and moved up to her hair, looking for trace evidence. All he found was remnants of dirty river water. His eyes moved over her face, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw an object in her mouth.

"What the hell?" he said to himself as he carefully put a hand on her chin to hold her mouth open. He used tweezers to pull a piece of paper out of her throat. He carefully examined it. The paper had been meticulously folded and then stuffed carelessly in the victim's mouth.

"What have you got, McGee?"

Tim looked up at Gibbs, who was standing over the body next to him.

"I found this in her mouth," he said, getting to his feet. He unfolded it, and furrowed his brow. "This doesn't make any sense."

"What is it?" Gibbs asked, leaning to take a look. The paper was filled with 1s and 0s.

01001000011000010111011001100101001000000111100101101111011101010010000001100101011101100110010101110010001000000110010001100001011011100110001101100101011001000010000001110111011010010111010001101000001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100100011001010111011001101001011011000010000001100010011110010010000001110100011010000110010100100000011100000110000101101100011001010010000001101101011011110110111101101110011011000110100101100111011010000111010000111111

"If I didn't know better, I'd say it was Binary code."

"Come again?"

"It's a type of computer language, Boss."

"Why would a killer leave us a note in Binary code?" Gibbs asked.

"We'll find out when I figure out what it says," Tim said, bagging the note. Gibbs nodded and turned away to talk to Ducky. Tim looked down at the note. Something about all of this was giving him deja vu, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. Maybe when he'd deciphered the note, it would come to him.

Tim took the evidence, including the note, down to Abby's lab when they got to NCIS. While she processed the physical evidence, Tim flattened the note and set to work deciphering it. He watched it run through the computer. As the words appeared on the screen in English, Tim's deja vu grew stronger in the pit of his stomach. When the computer was finished, Tim was staring blankly at the screen at the deciphered message.

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

Tim quickly e-mailed the deciphered message to himself, and cleared the search tool. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough, and Abby saw the message.

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure," he answered quickly. "I have to go."

Tim got up and left the lab without another word.

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind him, Tim hit the stop.

"This is impossible," he said to himself. "How many people are going to die this time? I can't let this bastard play me again."

He let himself breathe for a few moments, then turned the elevator back on. He had to keep this from Gibbs as long as possible, until he could figure out for sure what this was.

Gibbs was waiting on him when he arrived at the bullpen.

"Did you figure out that note, McGee?"

"Yeah... it's weird. I'm not sure what it means," he lied as he pulled up his e-mail and put the note on the big screen.

"Really?" Tony said, smirking. "The killer is quoting Batman?This is going to be interesting."

Gibbs studied the note, then turned to Tony.

"Show this to Ducky. I want to start a psych profile on this guy."

"On it, Boss."

Tim already had it printed out, and handed it to Tony as he walked by. He stared at the note on his computer, and hoped to God that he could figure this out soon.

"McGee."

Tim looked up at Gibbs, who was now looming over his desk.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Is something bothering you?"

"No, I'm good. Just a bit tired, is all."

"Well, go get some coffee, and then start running the victim's phone records and get on her history, see if you can find anything."

Not that I'm going to find a damn thing,Tim thought to himself as he nodded at his Boss.

"Will do, Boss."

Gibbs returned to his desk, and Tim escaped to the break room. As he poured himself a cup of what passed for coffee, and leaned against the counter. He knew this murder couldn't be a coincidence. It had to be the same person as before. He took another gulp of coffee, and resolved to tell Gibbs.

He took his coffee back to the squad room, and found the team packing up.

"Grab your gear, McGee. We have another body."

Tim paled as he threw his coffee in the trash and grabbed his bag. He was back.

TBC...