"Timothy. Timothy, wake up."

"'M too tired to go to school, Mom."

However, as the sleep seeped away from his consciousness, McGee realized that the voice calling to him was most definitely not his mother's. His mother did not possess a light baritone, nor did she speak with an accent born and bred on the Other Side of the Pond.

"Timothy, wake up."

"Ducky?" McGee finally placed the voice. He opened his eyes—and instantly regretted it. Light stabbed in, jamming an ice pick between his brows that even closing his eyes didn't touch.

"Don't try to move quite yet, dear boy," Ducky advised in a raspy voice. "They've informed me that the effects wear off eventually."

That brought up a number of questions for McGee, starting with who were they?, meandering through what effects?, and finally ending up with when is 'eventually'? None of which he voiced; keeping his stomach in its usual spot seemed to be a much higher priority at the moment and that involved maintaining a closed mouth.

He let his other senses tell him about his new surroundings: he was flat on a rather cold and drafty pallet, and there was no pillow cushioning his head from the hard wooden slats beneath him. No blankets, either, which accounted for the drafts. Wait; no, it didn't. McGee would have to open his eyes to figure out where the drafts were coming from. Those, then, could wait.

Smell: dank and dusty. Sound: the occasional clank of metal meeting metal with a few metallic chinks to indicate that more metal was trying to contract in response to the chill. He could hear Ducky breathing across the room—hah, the air had a particularly cavernous echo to it, as though they were in a very large space.

Ducky saved him the pain of re-opening his eyes. "They dragged you in approximately an hour ago, Timothy. I'll recommend pretending continued unconsciousness; from what they said, I rather think they expect you to perform some task for them."

McGee opened his mouth to respond, and promptly dissolved into coughing.

Ducky waited for him to finish. "Better?" he asked. "I'm sorry; I have no water for you. Or for me, for that matter," he added grimly. "Our captors don't seem to believe in providing the necessities of life."

McGee finally re-opened his eyes, relieved to find that the ice pick had diminished to a mere toothpick: uncomfortable, but bearable as long as he didn't move. "Where are we?"

"Good question, Agent McGee. I have no idea."

McGee stared at Ducky, not liking what he saw. It wasn't the fact that the medical examiner had been tied to a hard wooden chair, wrists fastened tightly to the arms of chair, although that was disturbing enough. No, it was the heavy lines on the man's face, the crevices deepened by pain and suffering and deprivation, things that no one—let alone a man of Dr. Mallard's years—should be put through. The bruise on Ducky's cheek edging up to give him a black eye was only a small part of it. The raspy voice suggested more of the same. The hoarseness suggested a lot of screaming in the recent past.

Footsteps sounded in the distance, and McGee, remembering Ducky's earlier words, immediately closed his eyes to feign sleep once again. There were several footsteps, suggesting three or possibly four people approaching and perhaps more. Men, McGee thought; there were no lighter steps among the heavy tapping of hard-soled shoes. No athletic shoes, either, which meant that whoever was walking over to them wasn't up for a rousing game of hoops. Good; neither was McGee.

Not just feet marching along, either. Along with the shoes came the sounds of squeaky wheels, as though something heavy was being pushed in their direction. McGee had to fight to keep his eyes closed, wondering what it was.

He didn't have to wait long. A dry voice dropped words: "Don't bother, Agent McGee. I know you're awake. I heard you talking to Dr. Mallard. Sound carries pretty well in here."

Ducky threw himself into the mix. "At least you finally believe me, that I am not this Kuryakin fellow."

"Let's say that I am seventy five percent convinced. I understand that you UNCLE agents can do a remarkable job of undercover work. That was how you fooled my father to his death, wasn't it?"

"I never met your father," Ducky responded wearily. "Why won't you believe me?"

"Because, Dr. Mallard," the voice hissed, "the moment I think that you are not Illya Kuryakin, you cease to be of value to me.

"Now, Agent McGee," and McGee could hear the man turning to face him, "you will open your eyes or I will kill this man on the spot."

No use pretending any longer. It would only get Ducky killed; assuming it really was Ducky, and not the UNCLE agent. Their captor did have that one thing right: retired or not, Kuryakin was really good at his job.

It was Ducky. McGee thought it was Ducky. Of course, if it really were the UNCLE agent Kuryakin, that was what he would want everyone to believe, wasn't it?

McGee's head hurt, and it wasn't just the leftover effects of whatever it was that they had used on him.

"X349," the voice said.

Beg pardon?

"X349," the voice repeated with relish. "The designation of the gas used to knock you out so we could bring you here. Another invention of my father's. He was a brilliant man."

"Wait a minute." McGee couldn't help but speak up this time. "You're going to tell me that he invented both the laser device and an anesthetic gas? Those are two completely different fields of science. I don't believe it. One, okay, but not two."

The shadow of the man loomed over McGee lying flat. Even through closed eyes McGee could sense the sudden decrease in light.

Oops. McGee's eyes weren't closed any longer. They merely had trouble focusing. Sometime not too long ago his eyes had lost the fight to stay closed and pretending to be asleep, and now he was staring at a short and stocky man with sharply barbered black hair and an attitude.

The vision finally cleared enough for McGee to figure out who was standing over him. "Commander Graybelle."

Graybelle uttered a triumphant snarl. "No longer. I can finally take up the name that I lost so many years ago: Bellagrigio. Do you hear me, Agent McGee? I was named for my father, Dr. Enrico Bellagrigio, senior. I am his heir, and possessor of all of his secrets!"

"Do you have any idea how egomaniacal that sounds?" Ducky asked tiredly from his tied up position on his chair. "I've heard Agent DiNozzo declaim similar lines with identical fervor, quoting from B movies from the fifties. They were ridiculous then, and just as ridiculous now."

Graybelle—or Bellagrigio, junior—scowled at them both. "We'll see how ridiculous they sound when I take over the world." He gestured to his henchmen.

Henchmen. There. McGee hadn't said it, but he'd thought it and it sounded just as bad inside his brain as it would have uttered aloud.

It didn't matter. The men pushed over a metal contraption on wheels, the same squeaky noise that McGee had wondered about when he'd heard Graybelle and his men approach. They positioned the Rube Goldberg device in front of Ducky.

"What's that?" McGee asked nervously. Graybelle obviously had something in mind, and McGee didn't have a clue as to what it was.

"Incentive," Graybelle replied. "You, Agent McGee, have a master's of science from MIT, correct?"

"Uh…yes." There was no point in trying to hide. Apparently Graybelle had been doing as much computer research as NCIS had.

"Good." Graybelle indicated the second metal table that his henchmen had dragged over, a table with wheels equally as squeaky as the first. There was a beat up box on top of the table, covered in canceled postage. It looked vaguely familiar. Next to the box sat the all important weapon that had been stolen from Warehouse 19. McGee recognized it from the diagrams that Solo had obtained for the NCIS team.

"Those are the prototype and the plans for the design of the weapon that my father invented," Graybelle informed them. "The Photonic Attractor and Micturition Evoking Light Amplifier." Clearly Graybelle had practiced saying the term, over and over again, until he could utter it properly.

McGee blinked. "Say what?"

"PAMELA," Graybelle ground out. "The laser gun."

"Oh," said McGee. "That."

"Yes. That." Graybelle tried to regain his composure and his sense of superiority. "You will read the design plans, and you will get it to work."

McGee remembered where he'd seen the box. "Those papers, in the box. It was in your apartment. I saw it there."

"Which is why I knocked you out and brought you here," Graybelle agreed. "You, McGee, are a scientist, like my father. Don't try to deny it. I heard you, there inside my apartment, before I knocked you out. You understand his work, how to use his diagrams. You will follow his plans, and make the PAMELA function the way he intended."

"Uh…" McGee tried to think fast, and failed. "Uh…you do realize that my degree is in computer science? That won't do much for your father's weapon. Physics, or maybe mechanical engineering. That's what you need. Not computers. Modern computer languages didn't even exist back then."

"What do you mean?" Graybelle's eyes went dead.

"I mean, this stuff isn't really my specialty." Would this explanation help McGee, or just enrage the man? He tried a different tack, one that seemed a little safer. "Uh…it's in Italian. I don't speak or read Italian."

"I do." Graybelle wasn't going to accept that excuse. "And you don't need to read Italian. You can read the blueprints." He leaned over McGee, prone on the slab, breathing into his face. "You are going to read those blueprints, and you are going to fix the PAMELA so that it functions."

This was so not going the way McGee wanted. He cast about helplessly, looking for something that wouldn't infuriate their captor. "I can't make it work, not unless you get me the emerald that your father used. That was the focal point. Without that emerald, it's useless."

"You will make it work," Graybelle insisted. "I will get the emerald for you to use, and you will make PAMELA jump at my command!" He straightened up. "Because if you don't, there will be consequences!"

"Consequences?" That didn't sound good.

It wasn't. Graybelle gestured to his henchmen, working with the second contraption in front of Ducky. McGee looked at what they were doing.

The largest and most frightening piece of the contraption was a long serrated metal blade, and it was positioned some three inches away from Ducky's chest. The metal glinted in the dim light of the warehouse, and looked all the more vicious for the lack of illumination. The rest of the contraption, housed in a gray steel box with an unfortunate rust spot over one corner where it had been exposed to the elements, seemed designed to propel the blade forward to pierce whatever happened to be in the path of the blade.

Ducky's voice was astoundingly steady. "What do you intend?"

Graybelle spoke to Ducky, but his attention was on McGee. "The blade will advance an average of one inch per hour. Unless Special Agent McGee fixes PAMELA, the blade will slowly pierce your skin, go through the muscle, and into your heart. You—Kuryakin or Mallard or whoever you are—will be dead." He paused. "Special Agent McGee, this man's life is in your hands."

McGee went cold. Tony, this ought to be you. This is straight out of a mad scientist movie.

"Let 'em through, Johnnie," Sarge directed, waving at the rookie stationed by the yellow crime scene tape to prevent the bystanders from crowding onto the scene. This was the most excitement most of them had seen in years, and the neighbors were determined to make the most of it. If they couldn't have been around for the explosion, they were certainly going to be there for the aftermath and the chance to be seen on nation-wide television declaiming how civilization was going to hell in a handbasket.

Solo gallantly raised the tape for Ziva to walk under, following her and allowing Kuryakin to trail after, thus missing—or explicitly ignoring—the glare from the Russian agent.

Kuryakin had changed out of the hospital scrubs, taking advantage of his doppelganger's wardrobe to put on something more appropriate for conducting an investigation related to a world-threatening weapon, complaining all the while that Dr. Mallard's clothing tended more toward formality than athleticism. Solo had ignored the comments and, taking her cue from her new partner, so had Ziva.

The Mossad agent tried to put her newly acquired NCIS investigative skills to work. She observed the ground around the entrance. "It is impossible to tell how many men were here," she said. "The ground is covered with footprints."

"That's right, ma'am." Sarge wasn't apologetic. "We checked out the inside first thing, looking for your man's partner that he said was in there. He weren't."

"Over here." Kuryakin drew their attention to the bush directly beneath one of the blown out windows. "There is only a single set of footprints here. This may be the location of the bomber, prior to tossing the bomb inside."

"I think you're right, Illya." Solo came around to peer over his partner's shoulder. He used the breadth of his hand for a rough measurement of the print. "Fairly small man. Shoe size not too large."

"But stocky," Ziva put in, noting the depth of the prints. "Short and fat, perhaps?"

"Or muscle," Kuryakin said. He straightened up. "Let's see what we can find inside."

Ziva, with her newfound sense of the American justice system, attempted to hold the UNCLE agents back before entering the soot-blackened apartment. "This is a crime scene," she informed them. "If we do not document all aspects of the scene and obtain evidence, the lawyers may force the release of the suspects on what they call 'a technicality'." She snapped a quick three pictures of the entrance to Graybelle's apartment.

Solo raised his eyebrows. "My dear girl, what makes you think that this case will go to court?"

That stopped Ziva, but only for a moment. A broad smile crept over her face. "Mr. Solo," she announced, "I believe that I will very much enjoy working with UNCLE."

"Quite so," Kuryakin said, taking Ziva's hand and tucking it into his arm. "Shall we proceed?"

"I saw her first, Illya," Solo protested, reaching for Ziva's other hand.

"Sorry, Napoleon. I saw her first."

"But you were Dr. Mallard at the time. That doesn't count."

"It most certainly does, Napoleon."

"You knocked her out. Is that any way to treat a lady?"

"It was global security, Napoleon—"

"Perhaps we might investigate?" Ziva inquired archly. She indicated the entrance to the apartment, the door hanging askew from only one of the two remaining hinges. "Whether or not this case is prosecuted, we still need information to find McGee—and PAMELA."

"I'm okay, boss. Spring me."

Looking at DiNozzo, Gibbs had his doubts. His senior agent was lying on the emergency room stretcher, sucking oxygen through a mask, drinking a tasty mixture of sugar water through a tube running directly into his vein, looking as though a year-long nap would be in his best interest.

Not the eyes, though. DiNozzo's eyes burned with anger. "They find McGee?"

"Not yet," Gibbs was forced to say. "Ziva's at the crime scene. She says there's nothing there. They can't find Graybelle, either; they must have taken him as well."

DiNozzo frowned. "Why would they want Graybelle?" he started to ask, and then came up with his own answer. "Of course. They must have known that the commander had access to the listing of the things in Warehouse 19. They grabbed him to get to that list."

Gibbs nodded slowly. "It's a possibility. Why McGee?"

"They need him to read the blueprints?"

"Doesn't make sense." Gibbs knew that for a fact. "McGee is an NCIS agent, not a research engineer. Maybe there's something computerized that they need him to hack into. That makes more sense."

"It does." DiNozzo carefully avoided nodding his head, which was how Gibbs knew that the senior NCIS agent was faking better health than he possessed.

Didn't matter. DiNozzo was alive and reasonably healthy, and McGee was missing, along with Ducky. Priorities, Gibbs. Find your missing people, before they turn up as corpses. "The first people on the scene of your bomb said you kept talking about a box. What box, DiNozzo?"

DiNozzo looked up, startled. "Damn! I forgot all about it. Boss, we found a box on the coffee table in Graybelle's living room, covered in stamps. Most of it was in Italian; it was some sort of diagram. McGee thought it looked like the PAMELA but wasn't quite sure." He grimaced. "Then all hell broke loose."

"Italian?" Gibbs didn't think that the name Graybelle sounded particularly Italian, but lots of generations had changed their names during their first look at Lady Liberty. Still…He flipped open his cell phone. "Ziva? Gibbs. Look for any papers written in Italian. That's right; Italian. DiNozzo remembers a box with a lot of papers in it before the place blew up. Try to find it. I'll bring DiNozzo over."

DiNozzo ripped the oxygen mask from his face, sliding his feet off of the stretcher and onto the floor. "Let's go."

Mistake. All the color drained suddenly from his face, and only Gibbs grabbing the man and wrestling him back onto the stretcher saved DiNozzo from an ignominious face plant on the cold linoleum floor.

"Ya think ya might want to take it a bit slower, DiNozzo?"

McGee couldn't concentrate. The box filled with papers diagramming the PAMELA sat on the metal table in front of him, and he could barely take in a single picture. The words were beyond him: his high school Spanish didn't even begin to prepare him for the scientifically advanced Italian that graced the diagrams. He poured through one page after the next, frantically searching for something understandable that he could use to stave off certain disaster. Even the diagrams themselves wouldn't come clear, not without a hint as to what the specific purpose was.

Next to the box lay a short tube with a handle: the PAMELA itself. Looking it, McGee failed to be impressed. It simply looked insignificant; which, McGee supposed, would be part of its charm for Commander Graybelle. Bellagrigio, McGee reminded himself. The commander had reverted to his childhood name and heritage, instead choosing to follow in his father's footsteps. In fact, at Graybelle's request, one of the henchmen had just completed posting a neat and tidy little sign on the door of the foreman's office of the warehouse letting the warehouse inhabitants know that Enrico Bellagrigio, jr, was the new CEO of the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.

Don't you know that taking over the world is highly overrated? You have to put up with unrest in the Middle East, drug-trafficking warlords, and obstreperous diplomats in every corner of the globe. Me, I'd rather take over a nice cave where no one can find me.

The droning was getting to him. The drone came from the Rube Goldberg device that, every minute, was coming closer and closer to drilling a hole straight through Ducky's chest and into his heart. One inch per hour, that was what Graybelle had said, and it was already closing in on three hours. Another few minutes, and blood would be drawn.

Ducky had closed his eyes, his lips set in a tight line, waiting. There was nothing that the medical examiner could do to alter the course of events, no way to assist McGee in the reconstruction of the PAMELA, no way to avoid the oncoming stake that would pierce his flesh. Blood already soaked the ropes that lashed his wrists to the hard wooden chair from Ducky's attempts to escape.

McGee's hands were shaking. The PAMELA clattered from them, bouncing onto the hard metal surface of the table, clanging and sending shivers of noise throughout the cavernous warehouse where the new leader of THRUSH had set up his lair. All six of the henchmen continued to watch the pair, watching McGee fumble with the weapon that would help them to conquer the world. Two more, McGee knew, were outside standing guard, and he hadn't a clue as to how many more minions Graybelle commanded. 'A lot' would cover it.

"It's all right, Timothy. You are doing your best."

McGee looked up. Ducky was watching him, bright blue eyes now calm and accepting of the outcome. "Ducky, I can't…"

"You're right, Timothy. You can't. No matter what happens, you mustn't. You mustn't allow this madman to have access to his father's invention."

"But, Ducky…" The blade was all but touching the thin clothing that covered Ducky's torso.

"No matter what, Timothy." Ducky closed his eyes resolutely. "No matter what."

A spot of blood soaked the clean white shirt fabric.

Ducky hissed with the sudden pain.