Chapter 4

"You know, I don't have all day," Gibbs said, slamming a stack of papers onto the table and standing up from his chair. Mr. Phillips glared at the man and sneered.

"I told you," he began. "That Wilson kid has been nothing but trouble. Yes, I believe he is the reason my son was killed, but I would neverbe able to take a life myself."

"But you had the integrity to violently harass his family for months," Gibbs prodded. "They have a restraining order against you."

"I was an alcoholic!" the man being interrogated explained, raising his voice defensively.

"How the hell does that make any difference?" Gibbs yelled, lowering himself to be face-to-face with the man.

"I wouldn't have said or done anything that I did if I were sober," Phillips said, sounding somber.

"Where were you last night, huh?" asked Gibbs. "Were you drunk?"

"I was home, watching TV," Phillips answered. He began to grind his teeth.

"Was your wife home to verify that?" Gibbs then questioned. The man shook his head 'no'. "What did you watch?" Phillips paused, obviously contemplating something. He knew they would be able to tell whether or not he was telling the truth.

"I was watching Eclipse on HBO," he confessed.

"Aha! And the truth comes out!" Tony shouted triumphantly on the other side of the two way mirror. "Big tough guy Herald Phillips confesses his love for our sparkling vampire friends." Next to Tony, Ziva chuckled.

"I do not think he is lying," she stated. Obviously, their boss was thinking the same thing. He picked up his stack of papers and exited the interrogation room. Tony and Ziva met him in the hall.

"Get him out of here, he didn't do it," Gibbs told the two. "Pack your bags. We have a plane to catch."

"Yes, boss," Tony responded.

"Marcus Durand is the owner of Starlex," Hardison explained to the team. Nate stood in the kitchen of his apartment, finding himself something to eat while Sophie sipped coffee and Parker munched happily on a fresh bowl of popcorn. She offered the bowl to Eliot who glared at her, eyebrows narrowed.

"Aren't you sick of that stuff yet, Parker?" he growled, pushing the bowl back into her arms. Hardison stared at the two.

"Excuse me, I was talkin'," he said. Parker smirked as her focus returned to the hacker and she threw a bite of popcorn into her mouth. Eliot folded his hands and faced forward. Sophie smirked at the two. From the kitchen, Nate impatiently indicated Hardison to continue. "Thank you," the hacker said before grabbing a piece of Parker's popcorn himself and turning back to their display of computer screens that were filled with images of documents and a profile picture of Starlex's CEO."

"According to Marie Wilson, her husband has been a test subject for the asthma steroid, called EasyAyr, for over five years," Hardison continued. "Publicly, Starlex has only been testing the drug on patients for about two years. There are no records of Wilson and who knows else that have been testing EasyAyr. None of the recent test subjects have gotten cancer yet."

"How do we even know Sergeant Wilson wasn't the only person to get cancer?" Sophie asked. "Couldn't it have just been him?" Nate shook his head, making his way over to the rest of the team.

"Marie mentioned a few of Wilson's friends who were in the same boat," he explained. "He wasn't the only one. It just takes the steroid a few years to cause the cancer."

"Oh, I see," Parker stated, her mouth full of popcorn. "They're releasing the drug now before the public realizes that it causes cancer, so they still make their money."

"Very good, Parker," Sophie said, half sarcastically, half actually impressed.

"How are we going to do this, Nate?" Eliot asked. "This wouldn't normally be a problem, but the fed is going to be involved. We're thieves; I think they're going to notice something is up. And don't you think they'll be able to figure all this out themselves?"

"We can do it better. Trust me, Eliot," Nate told the hitter, locking his eyes on Eliot's.