"Not too shabby, McGee." Gibbs looked over the set-up that McGee had designed, and approved.

It was the International Businessmen's Trade Association dinner, the first on the agenda for the visiting dignitary, and it was being held at the Marquis Hotel, in the largest dining hall. There were some two hundred guests, and Gibbs had had Tony, Ziva, and Abby working overtime to check out every one of them as possible assassins. Three had flunked the Abigail Sciutto sniff test, and had been 'dis-invited', but Gibbs didn't consider that a major setback. Three out of two hundred? Could have been a hell of a lot worse. Even the wait staff had passed muster; all except for four had worked there for several years and those four could barely spell Afghanistan, let alone be up enough on politics to consider an assassination attempt. No, personnel-wise, the place was as secure as it was going to get.

McGee's task was the rest of the facility, the environment in which the dinner and speech would take place. He set up a command center high above the diners with a window out onto the floor where everything and everyone could be seen. McGee sat in front of a bank of computers, all hooked into the security cameras so that he could monitor every corner of the hall and every entrance into the hotel.

"Even the bathrooms, McGee?"

"Even the bathrooms, Tony."

"Pervert."

"Bathrooms are very private places, Tony," McGee reproved. "I heard a story once of someone who smuggled pieces of a highly advanced technology past security, getting them through because they didn't look like anything special. This agent went to the bathroom, reassembled them, and was able to complete the mission."

"Yeah? Sounds like a movie to me," Tony said. "One with a very hackneyed plot. Where'd you hear that one?"

"From me, Tony," Ziva said, daring the man to object.

"Oh." Tony backed off.

McGee continued with his recitation. "We're not just hooked into the security system cameras, boss. I've set up stations where we're going to have guards. They'll notify everyone if someone tries to crash through. Based on intelligence that we received from the Afghani government, one of the methods of attack that can be used is a 'concerted effort approach'. There is a possibility that it will be used here in this country as well. Instead of a single sniper assassination, a group of attackers will approach this building, crash through the security and overwhelm them through sheer numbers, and then advance onto the target. We don't have enough security people to blockade a group attack at every possible entrance.

"What I've done to counter that," McGee went on, "is to set up these security checkpoints. If a simultaneous threat occurs, if several people try to crash through at one time, the computer will automatically threat-assess the situation as to where the through points are, and will pull the guards from the nearest points and divide them up to counter each access area. In other words, we'll use our resources to the fullest through rapid communications and deployment. If the assault team only tries to come through the front, we'll pull the Marines to the front. If they come through three entrances, the computer will direct a few Marines to each entrance. If we do experience an assault, I've also set up for the system to notify both D.C. Metro and the Naval Base. We'll have a SWAT team and a squad of Marines backing us up within minutes." McGee looked up, hoping for approval.

He got it. "Should work," Gibbs grunted. He peered at the diagram that McGee had on the main screen above the windows. "This telling me something?"

"Right. That's a diagram of the hall. The green dots are the Marines. You can see them posted at the doorways, checking people in."

"The yellow dots? There are a lot of 'em."

"Those are guests, boss. If there's someone that we think is acting suspiciously, I turn the dot purple, and I can track that person throughout the dinner." McGee did something with the keyboard, and a single purple dot floated around the yellows, mingling. "That's just an example; I don't know who I just tagged. But I'll be able to track this guest throughout the building."

"Even the bathroom?"

"Yes, Tony, even the bathroom." McGee hurried on, turning back to Gibbs. "Black will be Chief Ansarad, when he gets here. I'm making Mrs. Ansarad—both of them, I mean—I'm making them black as well, since they're part of his team. Chelid, too. Blue is us: you, me, Tony and Ziva. Even though I'm not going to show up on the screen, since I'll be up here monitoring the situation. I can track everyone, boss."

"Nice set-up, McGee." Ziva was openly approving. She had worn something silky and elegant for the occasion, yet something that she could move in quite easily. McGee had no doubt that a knife or two was strapped to a shapely leg underneath the silken trousers. "Is this something you learned in your American training? It sounds quite intricate."

McGee beamed. "No, this is something I dreamed up. I've always wanted to design a set-up like this, but never had the opportunity."

"I see." Ziva started to say something else, when she was interrupted by the comm. link.

It was Ducky, resplendent in a tuxedo, already in place among the growing number of guests. "Jethro, I need your assistance, if you please."

"Be right there, Ducky." Gibbs turned to Tony and Ziva. "Places, everyone. Showtime in five minutes."

Gibbs hurried down the stairs from McGee's command center, the other two in his wake. Ducky was waiting for them toward the stage where Ansarad would make his speech, along with Ifti Chelid. Guests were already mingling, drinking various beverages and accepting hors d'oeuvres from waiters bearing silver trays. Most wore Western-style dress, but here and there a turban or some other head gear made an appearance. The words floating through the room were a polyglot of English, French, Pashtun, and a host of other languages over which Gibbs could only goggle.

"Jethro, Ifti is concerned about Officer David—"

Chelid broke in. "You cannot employ an Israeli Mossad agent at a function like this," he insisted. "There will be many influential people here who will be offended. Have her leave."

"Not a chance." Gibbs was certain. "We don't have many people who speak Pashtun or Tajik. I need her on the floor, mingling."

"Unacceptable!" Chelid's voice was rising. "Unacceptable! I will tell Ali Ansarad not to attend unless she is dismissed. This is not open to negotiations, Gibbs. Either she goes, or Ansarad does not appear and the conference is ruined."

"Ifti—" Ducky tried to intervene.

"I am sorry, Dr. Mallard, but this came straight from Ali Ansarad's own mouth. Replace her, or the conference is off."

Gibbs tightened his lips. "I don't like being told how to run my security detail, Chelid."

"Nevertheless, this is how it will be," Chelid insisted. "It is a small thing. It is one person."

"This is politics, Jethro," Ducky reminded him. "The Afghani have never had a cordial relationship with the Israelis. It's not something that can be resolved, not at this moment in time."

"All right." Gibbs gave in only because the alternative was worse. "Ziva, I'm reassigning you."

"Gibbs—!"

Gibbs overrode her objections. "DiNozzo, you're on stage, close by Ansarad."

"As am I," Chelid put in.

"And Chelid," Gibbs agreed. "I'll take Ziva's place on the floor, mingling, seeing what I can pick up. Ducky, you do the same. You take the front of the hall, and I'll hang out near the back."

"Gibbs!"

"We'll keep in contact through McGee," Gibbs continued as if Ziva hadn't spoken. "McGee, you got that?"

"Got it, boss." The sound echoed in several earpieces from above.

"Gibbs!"

Now Gibbs did turn on the woman. "You have a problem, Officer David?"

"Yes, I have a problem, Gibbs! Neither you nor Tony speak any of the Middle Eastern languages, and—"

"I gave you an order, David."

"And it is a foolish one, Gibbs! You need—"

"Outside, David." Gibbs gave her his full attention.

"Gibbs—"

"I said, we'll talk about this outside, David. Now." Gibbs gave her a little shove, hustling her out through the door of the hall to the lobby beyond.

DiNozzo couldn't help but notice the victorious smile that Chelid was unsuccessfully trying to hide. He kept rigid control over his own feelings, battling down the urge to throttle the bodyguard. He forced a tight smile. "I guess it's just you and me up there on the stage. With the target," he added.


Gibbs shoved her through the door to the lobby, not taking 'no' for an answer.

"Gibbs!"

"Keep your voice down." It was entirely different tone than Ziva had expected. There was no anger in it at all; at least, none that was directed at Ziva. "Act like we're arguing."

"We are arguing." Ziva gestured upward toward the ceiling.

"No, we're not. We're trying to figure out why Chelid and Ansarad are so eager to keep you out of there. You think that there's someone that they're trying to contact?"

Ziva made another angry gesture, but the expression on face was thoughtful. "Perhaps. I can't think of any other reason that they'd want to get rid of my presence."

"Except for the fact you're Israeli." Gibbs almost smiled.

"Gibbs, you can't let him win. You need me. I'm best placed to spot—"

"Yes, you are," Gibbs agreed, "but not if Chelid keeps pointing you out and screeching that you're the enemy. You won't hear a thing from anybody. McGee," he called, activating his comm. link.

"Boss?"

"I'm sending Ziva up to you. Let her listen in on conversations from where she can't be seen."

"Uh, boss?"

"What, McGee?" A head slap wasn't far behind, if Gibbs had to run up the stairs to deliver it.

"Uh, boss, this set-up won't do sound."

"What do you mean, 'won't do sound'? We're talking, aren't we?"

"Yes, but the kind of sound you mean can only be piped in through multi-dimensional microphones, and I didn't think that we'd need anything like that…" McGee let his voice trail off.

"You mean, I can't have Ziva upstairs with you, listening to conversations down here."

"Uh…yes, boss."

"I can read lips," Ziva jumped in.

Gibbs frowned. "Not well enough for this. It would be hard enough if you heard the conversations through a mike, let alone reading lips with an audience that's constantly turning this way and that. No, Ziva, I want you down here, in the lobby. You think you can keep out of sight enough so that Chelid and Ansarad don't spot you?"

"I can do that," Ziva promised. She smiled tightly. "When Chief Ansarad arrives, I can always hide in the bathroom with Tony's perverts."


McGee could barely hear what Chief Ali Ansarad was saying during his speech through the glass in the command center, but it didn't matter. What did matter was the roving dots on the schematic on the screen over the windows. Those dots were corresponding nicely with the actions of the players in the hall below. The big black one, Ansarad, was positioned on stage with another black one—Chelid—beside him and a blue representing Tony DiNozzo on the other side. Through the window McGee could see both the bodyguard and Tony standing stock still, scanning the audience for anything lethal and unexpected. Tony wore dark shades and an equally dark and well-tailored suit, and McGee felt a flash of envy. McGee himself wasn't ill-favored, but Anthony DiNozzo put a lot of time and effort into sartorial flair. McGee wasn't about to compete with that.

There were two more blue dots: Ziva and Gibbs. Ziva's blue dot showed her to be in the lobby outside. Now that the crowd had moved in, Ziva had spent her time making the rounds from Marine to Marine, each soldier guarding another entrance, ready for a screeching car to announce the arrival of a hit squad. Gibbs's blue dot was equally as mobile but on the inner aspect of the hall, ambling slowly but purposefully around the edges. There were two more black dots, stationary, seated at the head table but to the side as befitted two honored but instructed to be quiet wives. McGee grinned; he'd only been introduced to the second Mrs. Ansarad briefly, but she didn't impress him as the type to sit quietly in the corner while the men talked over her pretty little head. He sighed, turning back to his work. Not his problem; if the Ansarads were happy with their chosen course, who was he to argue?

McGee glanced at the clock: 8:53 PM. All was on schedule. The first course had been served, and the main course was being deliberately delayed until after Ansarad had concluded his remarks. Those remarks should finish sometime in the next seven minutes, and nothing untoward had yet happened. McGee allowed himself to feel cautiously optimistic.

So why were his hands trembling? Why the feeling of anxiety that was rising through him like a geyser about to blow?

McGee fought to get himself under control, tried to persuade his hands to stop shaking, when a spike of sheer agony drove itself through his head. His vision went black under the onslaught.

A migraine? Timothy McGee didn't get migraines. Something really bad was happening inside his skull, something unrelated to what was happening downstairs on the stage.

Or was it? Was it unrelated? Some little memory tried to squirm its way out through the waves of pain. McGee fumbled for the switch to the comm. link, couldn't find it through the blackening haze…


"McGee?" Gibbs jerked his head up, stepped back among the heavy drapes to make his actions less noticeable. Whatever it was, had come through his earpiece. Gibbs wasn't even certain that the sound had been human. It could have been electronic feedback.

Except for one thing: McGee hadn't responded.

"McGee?" he repeated, hoping that the junior agent would answer.

Nothing. Dead air.

What the hell was going on? Why wasn't McGee answering? Ansarad's speech was going well, sucking in the businessmen like pigs at a trough, with no signs of impending mayhem except among those businessmen who wanted to grab the whole enchilada for themselves. There shouldn't be anything happening in the control booth command center. The only way to get upstairs to the command center where McGee was sitting was to go through the lobby, and the only way to get through the lobby was to go through Ziva David and a couple of Marines, and Gibbs defied anyone to get through the lobby through Ziva and company without making at least a little bit of noise to alert him.

No, there was definitely something not right. Gibbs himself couldn't leave his post, not to check out something that might be nothing more than a crossed wire, but he could assign that task to someone who wasn't even supposed to be here. He tapped his comm. link once again. "Ziva?"

"Gibbs?"

"I'm not getting a response from McGee. Check it out."

"On it."


Mossad Officer Ziva David hadn't always been assigned to NCIS. She hadn't always been an agent in investigative services. She had been trained in interrogation techniques, and, more importantly, she had been trained in espionage.

That was a whole other set of rules.

Those rules demanded that success be measured by the outcome. It didn't matter if one adhered to the Geneva Convention if a mushroom cloud rose over Tel Aviv. The difference between a bomb exploding on top of a house, killing the children within whose only crime was to be born Jewish, and a knife slipped between the ribs of the monster who aimed that bomb, was that only one monster died and the children would live to produce scientists and thinkers and leaders of their generation. Ziva had played by those rules. She had trained to be an assassin in the dark, a spy to slip a knife between those ribs so that innocent children and not-so-innocent adults lived to send her on another mission. She had trained in the ways to make a single man go against everything he had ever believed in, and thank her for the privilege.

Officer David hadn't always been assigned to NCIS, and the pieces suddenly clicked.

There was a bruise on McGee's wrist, now fading away into green. He could have banged it carelessly—or it could have been from a needle slipped into a vein, delivering a devil's brew to an unsuspecting mind.

McGee hadn't kept his appointment with Ducky's computer over the weekend. That McGee had spent the entire time writing—that, Ziva could believe. That the appointment had slipped his mind? Not possible. There was only one thing that McGee loved more than his writing, and that was computers. To add bad manners and not call Ducky to cancel? Impossible. Tony, yes, but not McGee.

Now McGee wasn't responding.

The pieces clicked.

Things were about to happen. Bad things were about to happen.

"Stay alert," she told the nearest Marine. "Something is going down."

Ziva headed for the stairs at top speed.