Tony opened the door of the nursing home and waved Sampson through first. He held out an arm to prevent Gibbs from entering. "Give it a second. We need to see if it's safe."

"DiNozzo, if you can't defend yourself from senior citizens, I have serious questions about…"

"Hey, you didn't see the way that old lady dug her claws into Probie and Sammy. And it's not like the elderly are violent offenders you can take down using superior fighting skills. Low man on the totem pole has to take it on the cheek." He waited until Sampson made it halfway down the hall without being assaulted before following. "Trust me, boss, you'd thank me if you'd seen the Pincher."

"Where the heck is everybody?"

Tony stopped cringing in anticipation of a head-slap and looked around the empty corridor. "Maybe it's naptime?"

"Shouldn't there be nurses or something?"

"Cigarette break?"

Sampson piped up, "It looks like they're all down here."

Gibbs tolerated the diversion, following Sampson as he slipped in along the rear wall. While the music, if it could be called that, in the large, open room was painful to Tony's ears, all the old people seemed to be enjoying it. The blond administrator who had provided them with the transfer-related paperwork the previous day leaned toward Gibbs and stage-whispered, "Once a month the nurses put on a show for the residents. It's one of the personal touches that make Our Lady of Peace the ideal place for an aging relative or friend. Are you here for a tour of our facilities?"

"No." Gibbs displayed his badge. "I'm here about…"

"Cpl. Flannery, yes. We had some men here yesterday asking questions about that unfortunate situation." He frowned. "I'm Bob Norton. I run this facility. Could we perhaps…" He leaned forward and looked along the wall, nodding to Tony and Sampson. "Yes, to my office, then."

Tony grinned as he recognized the old woman who had greeted them at the door the previous day sitting a few rows away and tapped Sampson's shoulder. "I bet Gibbs won't mind if you take a minute to say hi to grandma."

"Oh, I…"

"I wouldn't take that bet either, Sampson." Gibbs gave them both a rough shove in the direction Norton was walking. He took the only chair when they arrived at the man's office and immediately started asking questions. "Had anything unusual occurred involving Cpl. Flannery or the staff lately?"

"Honestly, the only thing that was strange was the fact that her parents weren't coming every day. They were taking a vacation, which, if you ask me, is something they should have done quite some time ago. On the other hand, they were far more tolerable than the brother. One of our aides is Indian, and Mr. Flannery insisted that he not have any contact with his sister."

"Did this employee have a problem with it?"

"Not at all. I think Rajinder was quite relieved to escape the constant questions about whether he was in the Taliban or something. He wears a turban as some type of religious symbol. I don't know if you've met Ryan Flannery…"

"We have."

"Then you must have some idea of…"

"We do."

Tony glanced around the office as Gibbs continued asking questions about the day Flannery had supposedly been transferred. There was nothing new or interesting on the walls or shelves since yesterday, although the dish of peppermints on the desk seemed to be pretty depleted. He contemplated reaching forward to take one. It was almost lunch time. His hand crept forward, but he withdrew it quickly when Gibbs turned his head slightly in its direction and turned his attention back to Norton's sales pitch.

"Well, there wasn't any reason given for her to be moved. She received exemplary care, in spite of the fact that we are mainly an elder-care facility. We did everything we could to ensure that Cpl. Flannery was comfortable."

"The medical reports indicated that she was…" Sampson trailed off when all eyes turned to him and buried his nose in his notebook. "Sorry, I…"

Tony smiled after watching Sampson twitch for a moment and looked at Norton. "I think the point that Agent Sampson was about to make was that…well, I thought the doctors at Bethesda said Flannery couldn't feel anything and wasn't going to wake up. So, comfortable is kind of an odd choice of words." Norton sighed heavily and Tony continued, "As long as the bills get paid for the exemplary care, huh?"

"I don't think I need to tell you that this is a business." He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. "You have to understand that families are very often reluctant to let go of loved ones, regardless of their prognosis. This was especially true of Cpl. Flannery's family. Perhaps because she was so young," he added as an afterthought.

Gibbs nodded slowly. "Uh huh."

"I really don't know what else I can tell you Agent Gibbs."

"You can tell us where we can speak with this Rajinder guy."

"Rajinder Singh, yes." Norton flipped open a book on his desk. "Yes, he's working today…right now, in fact."

"We'll need to speak with him."

As Norton led them out of his office and through the halls now crowded with senior citizens he said, "I'm sorry if I've led you to any false conclusions. I didn't mean to imply anything negative about him. He's a model employee and the residents all love him. I think some of them think he's a bit of a novelty, but…they do come from a different era."

"We're just exploring every angle." Gibbs grabbed Norton's arm as a man in a turban emerged from a room about twenty feet up the hall. "That him?"

"Yes." Before anyone could stop him, Norton called out, "Rajinder, these men from the government would like to speak to you about…"

Singh took off running the moment Norton said the word 'government.' Tony had been anticipating the move based on the man's wide-eyed stare when his name had been called and had covered half the distance to him by the time Norton trailed off. Tony sprinted, an impressive feat when his expensive Italian loafers and the slippery tile floor were taken into account. He could hear Sampson dodging between various carts, walkers and wheelchairs, fairly close on his heels. Gibbs had probably taken some crazy shortcut that would cut Singh off before he could escape but…Tony pumped his legs faster, trying to close the distance between himself and the escaping suspect. If this guy got away, it was gonna be Sampson's fault.

He crashed into a wall as he skidded a few feet in the wrong direction. Recovering quickly, he ran toward the exit Singh was just going through. If the picture in Tony's head was accurate, there was a high fence encircling the parking lot on three sides that way. As he took his last few strides, he extended his arms and hit the door at full speed.

He cried out in pain as the glass shattered around his hands.

Ziva sat up on her pallet, managing to yank her gun from beneath the folded pile of clothes as she did so. Amit Stein withdrew his touch and held up his hands in surrender. "Relax, David. I was just trying to wake you up for our shift with the terrorist pig."

"Oh."

"You look a little pale. Everything all right?"

"I was dreaming." She blinked to clear both her vision and her head, convincing herself that it was just a dream, that nothing bad had happened.

Stein wiggled his eyebrows. "Something fun? Maybe about me?"

"Hardly." She pushed him away as she stood.

"I was joking, David. Can't you take a joke?"

She glared at him as she pulled her hair back, shaking off the last vestiges of her dream. "Stein, if you ever have to wake me again, I suggest you tap my shoulder, because if you touch me anywhere else ever again, you will be stuck with a hook instead of a hand."

As he slunk out of the room, she began to change into the previous day's bloodstained clothes. She couldn't imagine why there was still a sense of foreboding hanging over her – Lior had shown her the tests that proved Sahrawi had no communicable diseases. She shrugged it off and stepped over Jen's sleeping form on the way to the door.