"Very good, McGee," Balboa breathed. "Thats what I like to see, no messing, no waiting around. Cut straight through the red tape, and get it sorted. From what I could tell, a few toes may get stood on with Canada's handling, but no laws or regs broken. Yes, very good, McGee."

"Thanks, Ric. Lets just wait and see what comes back from our guys." Tim was worried he had overstepped his authority, but with Rics assurance, it looked like he'd done ok, his first time out.

"Naval RARC is monitoring the Rhode Island vessel. Its all alone out there. All ships maintaining their registered courses. All ships within twenty nautical miles are exactly where they should be." Michael had been monitoring RARC and so far was doing a good job.

"Canadian officials have me on hold, yet again," Ryan said.

"Hang up, Ryan, you've done what you can. Between informing Special Agent Knight directly, and Deputy Director Bouchard being informed, we have completed our obligations. What they do now is up to them." Balboa had no time for people trying to pass the buck. It seemed that was the way they wanted to do it in Canada.

"Tim."

"Yeah, Kei."

"You have a tele-call coming through." Kei looked worried, thinking it was one of the directors coming through to yell at them.

"I'll take it," Tim said with resignation, thinking the same thing as the drugs smuggling specialist.

Hitting the accept button on his mobile, Tim watched as Special Agent Knight filled the screen yet again.

Time for round 2, Tim thought, bring it on.

"Special Agent McGee, I owe you an apology."

BOOM! Tim was shocked. Of all the things he was expecting, that was not it.

"Canadian Sea Authorities had someone on hold but they think they cut her off. Seemed someone didn't know what to do with the call."

"They didn't cut her off. She was ordered to end the call. She had better things to do with her time than listen to music," Tim said, not very pleasantly.

"I understand, I would have done the same thing. Still, I am sorry for the way I treated you. You were trying to help, and I acted like a jackass. If that offer still stands, can I take you up on the drone and satellite coverage? It'll take an age from my end."

McGee was half tempted to tell him to stick it. He'd done it to a deputy Secretary of State, so why not this guy? Luckily for Special Agent Knight, Senior Field Agent Timothy McGee, Combating Transnational Organized Crime, NCIS, Jacksonville was a very different man to Probationary Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS, Washington DC.

"That can be arranged. We need to coordinate our actions as well. If these three ships are working together, we get to one before we can get to all three, we might tip them off." Tim was trying to think ahead, like in chess. Let your opponent think he was winning, before you let loose with different pieces.

"Agreed. I'll have Canadian Air and Naval Support standing by. As you spotted this, I'll follow your lead. I'll get back to you in the next ten minutes. Again, my apologies, Agent McGee."

Knight signed off the telescreen, probably to shout at the nearest person and get his teams into play. Tim turned back to his team to see Sato sitting at her desk, looking at him with what Balboa later described as hero worship. Big, brave Tim McGee, standing tall against the big bad shouting man.

"Sunaina, keep running that search, expand it if you can. I've got a feeling this could have happened before. Also, set your search engine to compare for partial comparisons."

"Sorry, Mcgee, you've lost me."

"Join the club, Sunaina, what the hell are partial comparisons, Tim." Balboa was man enough to admit that he didn't know everything, and he would show that to his team. No one should be afraid to say I don't know.

"Basically, the search parameters are set at the moment to pick up all eight crew names. I wanna know if just two out of the eight have served together before somewhere. Or three, or four of them have. Because of the number of possibilities, the search engine needs new parameters. While looking for all eight names at once, it can scan the same documents, using multiple searches at once."

"Special Agent McGee," Ryan spoke with barely veiled contempt. "There is no such program on the NCIS database."

"Not one that is fully field ready, no. I'm sending you the one I wrote, now. It should do the job."

"You wrote it?" Ryan asked skeptically. Balboa was keeping out this. McGee had to find his own way to deal with this woman. Fighting his superiors, Balboa would do that. Asserting himself over the junior members of the team, Tim had to do that all on his own.

"Agent Ryan, I have a masters degree in computer forensics from MIT. I graduated summa cum laude when I was 22. Before that, I had graduated summa cum laude from Johns Hopkins at 19 with a BSc in biomedical engineering. Writing that search program was easy." Balboa was doing his best not to smirk. Tim and Ric had read everyones files before coming down to Florida. Once again, Tim was the smartest and most qualified, academically speaking on the team. Unfortunately for Ryan, the only thing she beat him at was length of service.

"Excuse me, but I think that call is for me." Tim, once again, moved over the to the telescreen, his cell phone displaying Special Agent Knight once again.

"Agent Knight?" Time queried

"Agent McGee, we have confirmed the locations of those two vessels. One is approximately 2 miles off course, the other 5. Fishing trawlers veering off course is nothing new, they go where the best catch is. With your information to hand, we did some more checking. Both vessels are on course to meet up with two vessels that we cannot identify. We are maintaining radio silence with these ships to give them the impression they have gone undetected. Whatever you are going to do, you have approximately 75 minutes. Thats when the vessels off the northwest coast will intercept each other."

"Thanks for the heads up, Agent Knight. We need to coordinate with our teams here, standby."

"Kei, update CGIS and DEA. Michael, keep monitoring RARC. Sunaina, how are those searches coming along?" Balboa was feeling very pleased right now. Apart from Ryan, his team was functioning well together. "Tim, update the Director and Deputy Director please. Ryan, contact the National Reconnaissance Office, we need that coverage, now."

"On it Ric." Balboa was not surprised she had no problems accepting his authority, she was never in the running for his job. He guessed either Taylor or Stretford, two men he didn't know and had never met, must have given her the belief she would be chosen as SFA.

"Balboa, the search has now been expanded going back 10 years, covering all North American shipping records. I've got two hits, so far. Thats in less than ten minutes."

"How long for the search to complete?"

"I've never done a search like this before. I have no idea." Balboa liked the young woman, she held her hands up and said I don't know.

"Tim, any ideas?" Balboa knew Tim would have something to say on the search, even if he couldn't give him a time frame.

"Timewise, none. Accuracy wise, all results will need to be checked. Some of the documents being searched right now where inputted onto the database, meaning someone has physically entered the details onto the system. Others, the physical document was scanned and uploaded, so what the computer thinks is John, could be Tom, depends on the persons handwriting." At this Ryan scoffed. Tim was close to losing it with this woman.

"Agent Ryan, anything from NRO?" Tim asked, more like demanded.

Once again silence from the woman who was de facto third in command.

"Special Agent Ryan, having read your file, nowhere in there does it say your hearing is deficient." Balboa looked up from Michaels computer, hearing the same tone he had when Tim was speaking with Knight. "This is the third time I have asked something from you and been ignored. Should there be a fourth time, the matter will proceed further up the chain of command." Now there was a threat. Being summoned to a meeting with your team leader, their first week on the job. Not the best career move.

Ryan looked at McGee, eyes blazing with fury. Who the hell did this guy think he was? He was 5 years younger than her, but a step above her on the command ladder. And now, he was making a show of her in front of the rest of the team. She would show him.

"McGee," she drawled, insolence dripping from her tongue, " I prefer to be addressed as Special Agent Ryan. For a graduate of MIT, I think you would have understood that."

Balboa was worried. After having seen and talked with McGee every day for the last two weeks, he had seen his confidence come up in leaps and bounds. The McGee in front of him now was one who had seen Eugene Coyle bellow at Abigail Scuito, reduce DiNozzo from a Very Special Agent, to an ordinary agent in seconds. Ryan had brought this on herself, he decided. She's a grown woman, like Scuito, let McGee handle her. Just don't get cocky, Tim, Balboa thought.

"Oh, ok. You should have said," Tim said, turning away from her looking defeated. Balboa noticed the smirk on Ryans face, and was about to call her on it when McGee turned back around.

"Actually, come to think of it, you didn't. Our first day here, Ric asked if everyone if they prefered to be called by rank, or specific name. You didn't specify. Now I know, that will make things easier."

Tim turned once again, moving towards the telescreen to update Shepard and Craig.

"And I'm still waiting on the NRO status." Tim had won this round.