Down in Abby's lab, I had my hands propped up on the table, leaning my weight on them. I was staring at Louis' laptop, my tongue sticking out slightly. There was absolutely no information on here.

Nothing. None. Notta. Zilch.

It was a few pictures, a couple of files that were basically worthless to a terrorist, and he had an Amazon, Ebay, and FaceBook. That was it. It was completely past me as to why someone would bother hacking in. There was two options.

A.) Louis was such a genius with computers that he hid the files.

B.) I was totally missing something.

I'd like to think it was A, but I was probably so stirred up and frantic that I simply looked something over. It happens to the best of us. Anyway, Abby had gone back to Major MasSpec (Y'all correct me on spelling here!), leaving me to my thoughts. They weren't particularly good thoughts, either.

"Abs?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you find anything, I mean anything on this laptop?"

"I already told you, McGee. I couldn't find a stitch of information. I searched all his files, all through his search history, I went through his documents, music, pictures, and even recycle bin," she said, pulling a slender tube from one of the slots on Major MasSpec.

Sighing, I turned back. Something had to be there. The CT bugged his laptop, then hacked. There was something he wanted. And it wasn't old country songs by Jamey Johnson, or these blurry photos he downloaded. None of the to-do lists he typed up, and his search history was pointless. I felt like I needed to look at the pictures for some really odd reason...

Encryptions...

Mousing over an old, sepia colored photo, I'm pretty sure I did something like a yell, because Abby came jogging over.

"What, what, WHAT?!" she exclaimed, looking at the screen.

"Abs! There's encryptions in the photos!" I said, looking at her excitedly. I was beaming now, but a realization hit me. What if they were bogus accounts?

Abby seemed to read my mind, as she bumped me out of the way, starting to de-crypt. "I'm gonna do this, okay? Go grab something to eat, and get me a Caf-Pow while you're at it."

I nodded, quickly leaving her lab. I didn't want to miss anything. So, I hopped in the elevator, went to the break-room, got myself a Nutter Butter, and stopped by the Caf-Pow machine for Abby. My hands were pretty full, as I'd grabbed napkins and such, and now back at the elevator, I couldn't hit the button to summon it.

"Dang it!" I mumbled, trying to hit it with my elbow, then my hip, and even tried kicking it once or twice.

And then I hear cackling.

"Oh, McGee!" Tony said, belly laughing. He was clutching his stomach, leaned back, laughing as hard as possible.

"Tony, just hit the button and then send me to Abby's lab," I said, furrowing my brows.

"And get rid of," he stopped, made a gesture, and continued, "This?"

As soon as he said that, the doors opened, and Gibbs just about bumped into me. I jumped in the elevator, and thought I'd won. But now I needed to hit the button to the Lab level.

"Boss!" I called to Gibbs, who had stopped to talk with DiNozzo.

He simply looked at me.

"Can you send me to the Lab?" I asked, slightly embarrassed. He walked up, gave me an unreadable expression, and hit the button. The doors slid shut, and I was on my way down...

"Abs, I'm back!" I called, setting all the food and drink stuffs down. She was in the back of her lab, on the monitor behind the closing doors. I thought it was strange she didn't answer, but I proceeded to walk back there.

"Find anything?" I mouthed through the doors, which she had shut. She made a drinking motion, so I reached back, grabbed her Caf-Pow and my Nutter Butter, and held them up. She opened the doors, pulled me in, and snatched the Caf-Pow from me.

"Oh, McGee. This is exciting. And bad. Really, really," she dragged the last 'really' out, "Bad." She sipped the drink, her face concerned, with a hint of excitement.

"Spit it out already!" I said, walking to her monitor. I wanted to know what was going on.

She walked over, plopped down, and sighed. "I de-crypted the files, right? Well, Louis was way, I mean way more tech savvy than he led on. He had hidden stuff in all these old pictures, and I'm like Ninety-Nine point Nine-Nine percent sure he put them there. They weren't embedded by a virus or some kind of bug. They're "Home-Planted," for lack of better terms."

I nodded. It made sense, really. Play it off dumb, hide secrets, no one ever know. Still, what were the secrets? Abby was really working my nerves with the guessing, and I think it showed on my face, because she wrapped up the lecture quickly.

"McGee, brace yourself," she said.

"Consider me braced."

"He had major Military plans embedded in these old photos," she said, clicking on a de-crypted file. It was attack plans, ship layouts, courses, flight routes, troop plans. This was major. A Cyber TERRORIST had these. He was cyber, yeah, but still. Sell them on the black market, and anyone could counter-act any move the USA makes.

"Abby, you know what this means?" was all I said, staring at the screen, jaw dropped.

"It means the United States of America, and to put it lightly, is very, very screwed as of now."

"Abby, we have to track him, we have to get these back before he sells them, he have to fix this!" I yelled. I was talking so fast, I could tell she heard it all jumbled up. To be fair, I was panicked. Gibbs had to know. Tony and Ellie needed to be on board with this. This got real, real fast.

"I'm going to tell Boss. Scratch that, I'm just telling him from here. No need to waste any more time." I snatched my phone from my coat, and hit Gibbs' name.

Ring, ring, ring...

"Pick up, dammit!"

"What, McGee?" Gibbs answered.

"Boss, okay. There's embedded files and, and. Uhm, there's Military and Government secrets on here, and that's what the Cyber Terrorist hacked him for," I spilled it all out, and then took a deep breath.

"And can all these be sold?" he asked coolly.

He was on speaker now, and Abby was at my shoulder. "YES!" we chorused, and Gibbs hung up. I assumed that meant he'd be in Abby's lab shortly, and I was correct. He strode in, awaiting the explanation. Abby and I had moved the laptop, and we hooked it up with the big screen, so he could see everything clearly.

"This," she said, bringing up one of the old, sepia photos, "Is where the encryptions were hidden. He embedded them into here. No one would search photos for something like that. Unless you're NCIS."

Gibbs nodded, and searched the photo over intently.

"Is that one of the old Desert Storm pictures?" he asked, squinting at the screen. We both shrugged, not totally sure. It wasn't very clear. Gibbs waved it off, and pointed at the screen.

"Show me all the other stuff."

Abby clicked the link, and it brought up everything we'd seen before. Gibbs' eyes went wide, and he mumbled something I couldn't catch. I'd put my money on the fact that he was swearing, but I'd be swearing, too. The fact that someone had all this was un-nerving. What I hadn't thought of, why did Louis Calder have these plans and secrets?

"What in the ever loving hell was Louis messing with this for?" Gibbs said, this time loudly. He didn't relate, didn't ask anymore questions, just strode from the room. I looked at Abby, sighed, and grabbed my Nutter Butter.

"This is going to be a long night," I said, taking a bite of my snack. We now know why he was hacked, but no clues to his death. Not a single suspect, not even a fracture of a lead. All we knew was that he was messing with bad stuff, and it was more than likely corresponding with his death.

And that's when her monitor went hay wire, and her computer shut down completely. She looked from the fidgeting screen to me.

"And we just got bugged."

A/N. Hey, y'all! It took me longer to update this time. Life is super busy. lol I'm still enjoying writing this, so I'm gonna keep going. I sit down, think of 100 ways for this to go, and get to be wrapped up in my thoughts for an hour or more. It's wonderful! Thank y'all for the reviews, reads, and favorites!