"We didn't get anything off the cell phone, boss," Tim said glumly when he returned to the squad room. "Abby and I went over it with a fine-toothed comb. I don't know if the chip is ruined beyond repair or if someone intentionally erased everything that was on there, but it's a dead end."

Gibbs gave him a hard look, causing Tim to look away abashedly. It wasn't that Gibbs was necessarily angry with Tim, but he was angry that they weren't having any luck, and angry at Sacks for interrupting and ruining his day; he needed to take it out on someone and Tim was the closest to him at the moment.

"Dammit, McGee!" he bellowed. "Without that cell phone we've got nothing!"

Tony, seeing a chance to exacerbate his boss' anger and avoid being on the receiving end of it, added, "I thought you were supposed to be the computer genius here, Probie. Maybe we should get Keating back up here since you appear to be useless."

"Be my guest, Tony!" Tim snapped. He was not in the mood to be the team punching bag today. He had too much on his mind. "I know other people who'd be willing to compensate me for my skills! Just don't expect me to help you when whoever you get to replace me can't even hack into the local Wal-Mart!"

"Both of you, sit down and shut it!" Gibbs ordered. His ire regarding the lack of information on the cell phone was gone and in its place was that damned nagging suspicion. What sort of people were bidding on Tim's computer skills? Gibbs got the idea that the people after him weren't hoping he'd design a webpage for them or something. That didn't leave too many other options.

Tim leaned back against his desk, folding his arms contritely. "Boss, I swear we did everything we could with that thing. It's completely clean and no one could get anything off of it."

Gibbs rubbed his eyes, nodding. "I know, McGee, I know." Why was everything piling on him today? This case, Fornell's accident, Sack's stupid theory. It felt as though the gods had conspired to make his life hell.

"So where does this leave us on the case?" asked Ziva.

"Nowhere," Tony replied. "We've got no suspects, no leads, nothing. I've got the feeling we're not going to get anywhere with this."

"You're wrong, Tony." The new voice was Abby's. She had just entered the squad room, all smiles.

"What've you got, Abbs?" asked Gibbs.

"Something for you all to see down in my lab," she replied, motioning for them to follow. Knowing better than to ask her to elaborate, the four of them stood obediently and followed.


"The hospital hasn't called," Courtney said when Agent Sacks entered the office. She had her notes on their case spread out on her desk. Beside them was the report on the explosion. She was looking between the two, hoping to find a connection.

"No surprise there," he replied as he shed his coat and placed it over his chair. "When I was there this morning the doctor said they probably wouldn't know more until tomorrow."

"How is Agent Gibbs handling the news?"

Sacks sat and pulled out his notes. "Just the way I'd expect him to. He's being very stubborn, though."

"I'm guessing he wasn't appreciative of your theory?"

"My theory? You seemed to agree with me."

She shrugged. "I think you might be on to something, but I can't say I'd suspect Agent McGee in it. He doesn't seem the type."

"All the easier to get away with it," Sacks mumbled as he poured over his notes. "He probably knows how to make himself appear as harmless as possible."

Courtney frowned. In the short time she'd spent with Agent Gibbs and his team she'd found Tim to be very kind and unassuming. Nothing about him had set off any warning bells in her mind. Then again, she supposed that was what made a successful criminal. How many women, after all, had been taken in by Ted Bundy's charms? The real villains didn't cackle maniacally and twirl their handlebar mustache ala Snidely Whiplash; they were far sneakier than that. That didn't mean she liked suspecting someone she'd considered a friend, though.

"Do you think it's actually him?" she asked. "He's a great hacker, but he's not the only one in the D.C. area."

"I know that," Sacks snapped, obviously flustered by the recent turn of events. He was so accustomed to being Fornell's right hand man, he didn't quite know how to be the one in the lead. He knew Fornell was counting on him and he didn't want to let his boss down. If that meant taking on the unpleasant task of adding a guy everyone liked to his list of suspects, so be it.

"Look, I don't want to accuse the kid any more than you do. When I've had to work with NCIS in the past he was usually a nice guy. But this level of hacking…there aren't many people I know who could pull it off."

"And you're sure it's someone with government clearance?"

"Positive," he said. "Whoever this is, they know exactly what to look for and where to look."

She shook her head sadly. These days it was becoming more and more difficult to tell who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. Why couldn't it be simpler? "I don't understand how someone could do this, especially someone who has supposedly dedicated his life to keeping people safe."

"If it comes with a large enough price tag, some people are willing to do anything."

"What about computer geeks from the other agencies?" she asked.

"I've looked into that."

"Even the FBI?" she asked meekly. Courtney didn't want to point any fingers at her own co-workers, but it was a possibility they couldn't ignore.

Sacks nodded. "Even us. No one is above suspicion right now."

"What about me?" she asked with a wry smile. It was her own attempt to lighten the situation.

He responded with a half-hearted grin. "Should I have any reason to suspect you?"

Before Courtney could respond the desk phone rang. He snatched it up. "Agent Sacks."

She watched as he nodded, listening intently to whoever was on the other end of the line. "Okay," he said after a long pause. "Okay, we'll be right down."

"Well?" she asked after he hung up.

"Forensics has something for us and so does Cooper," he said as he stood.

Courtney followed suit. "Breakthrough on the case?"

"Maybe," he said with a frown. "I've got a feeling it'll be one of those good news, bad news kind of situations."

"Why is that?"

"Because if I'm right about the perp being government employed, I'm going to have to deliver bad news to one of our sister agencies."


"The cell phone was a dead end," Abby said. "No one could have gotten anything off of it."

Gibbs glowered. "Is this what you called us down here for? Because McGee's already filled us in on that."

"Patience is not your virtue, Gibbs," she replied with a smirk. "The reason I called you down here is this." She pulled up grainy video footage on her plasma. It depicted a busy D.C. intersection. With a click of a button, the video began to play, showing their dead Marine driving by in his car.

"This is the footage from the traffic camera near the parking lot where he was found," Ziva observed. "I can see the church across the way."

"You are correct," Abby said. "I know we couldn't find anything from the parking lot video camera, but then I remembered that the light at that cross-section had just installed a traffic camera to catch people who ran red lights, so I pulled the footage."

Tony peered at the screen. "There's definitely someone in the passenger seat, but the visor is blocking the person's face."

"Yes, but who says you need a face to identify someone?"

"We pulled the fingerprints from the car," Tim reminded with a small frown, "but we couldn't get a match."

Abby shook her head. "You guys can't think outside the box, can you?"

"Enlighten us, Abby," Gibbs said.

She clicked a button and zoomed in on the passenger's hands. "With the help of my cleaning program, I managed to get a nice, clear shot of these hands. Notice anything?"

The hands in question were very feminine, slim and slender with French tipped nails. On the right ring finger was a class ring with a large stone in the center. The film was black and white, so it was impossible to tell what color the stone was, but it obviously had a dark hue. More noticeable than the ring, though, was the bit of body ink that decorated the top wrist of the passenger's left hand. It was a small series of music notes encased within a heart.

"I've seen that tattoo," Ziva said. "Pvt. Claybourne's sister has the same one in the same spot. What are the odds of two people close to the Pvt. having that same tattoo?"

"She said she'd spent the day at home studying for her midterm," Tony said, referring back to his notes. "And I'll bet that's her high school class ring."

Gibbs nodded, obviously impressed. "Tony, Ziva, go pick up Elaine Claybourne. Don't tell her what we've got, though; just bring her in."

"Yes!" Abby exclaimed, pumping her fists into the air. "Now that we've solved this case, you guys can start helping the FBI figure out who's stealing information from them and who tried to murder Fornell!"

The moment the words left her lips, time halted for Tim. He saw every muscle in Gibbs' face tense, saw the man's steel blue eyes glint with anger. At an agonizingly slow rate, he watched Gibbs' lips part, saw his mouth open, saw him take a breath, and knew what he was going to say long before he uttered a syllable.

"Abby, how did you know someone was stealing from the FBI?"


FBI technician John Cooper was the very personification of nondescript. With a round, pale face, hay-colored hair, and dull brown eyes, he was the kind of person who could blend in with a crowd. And it wasn't only his looks that were bland; his voice, facial expressions, and entire demeanor almost always fell in the realm of bored. Most people attributed this to the lack of social contact he got on the job.

"Find something interesting, Cooper?" asked Sacks as he and Courtney entered.

"Could be," he answered with little to no inflection in his tone. He was currently hunched over Fornell's cell phone, fiddling with it. Surprisingly, the phone had received only a moderate amount of damage in the explosion, so there was a chance the information could be accessed.

He clicked a few keys of his keyboard and brought the phone's call log up on the screen. "I've tapped into the phone's memory. Most of the incoming and outgoing calls were agency related. Lots of calls to and from both of you and others around here. A few calls for take-out and one or two to Diane Fornell. I'm guessing that's the ex-wife."

"Yes, she is," Sacks said, becoming impatient. "Now unless you think she put a bomb in his house—which, admittedly, isn't an unlikely theory—could you get to the point?"

Cooper shrugged. "There was one number that caught my attention. There were three outgoing calls to this number and one incoming call from it. One of the calls lasted more than twenty minutes."

"Do you know what the call was about?"

For a split second, Cooper's expression changed from monotonous to sour. "It's a phone, not a tape recorder. But for twenty minutes? I'm guessing they weren't discussing the weather."

"So are you going to tell us whose number it is, or do we have to guess?"

Cooper struck another key, bringing up a name and a picture. Sacks and Courtney felt their stomachs sink. "Special Agent Timothy McGee."