"-and he'll be on the 12.39 flight out from LAX," McGee said tiredly as he looked up at the screen. Then he smiled. "He probably thinks that he's gotten away with it."

"Yeah well, he'll have a greeting party in the form of Tony and Ziva," Gibbs growled from the screen. "Good job McGee."

"Thanks Boss," McGee replied. It had been a hell of a past three days. They'd had a kidnapping case fall onto their laps from absolutely nowhere. Lieutenant Commander Robert Crossman had returned home from deployment to discover that his pregnant wife and five-year old daughter had been kidnapped by a not particularly intelligently led street gang who seemed to think that naval officers has access to large numbers of automatic weapons and ammunition.

Why they hadn't kidnapped someone from the Army or the Marines was a mystery. Crossman was an officer on a frigate. Go figure.

McGee and Callen had been in on this case from the start and it had been a total bastard. They'd been running surveillance, trying to identify the main suspects, trying to track the main suspects, working out where the hostages were… it had been a long list of things to do.

Luckily on the second day they'd been joined by Sam Hanna, who'd risen from his sickbed the moment that he'd heard about the case. And on the third day Kensi had joined them. A pale, slightly shaky, Kensi, but that wasn't a problem.

And they'd done it. Linda and Ellie Crossman had been saved, the vast majority of the gang were now in custody (although three of the stupidest were dead) and only their leader was still free. Well, sort of. He'd had the bright idea of fleeing to the other end of the country. Unfortunately he'd used his real name to book the flight. And now Tony and Ziva were going to pick him up at Dulles.

"You ok McGee?"

He started and then looked at the screen. "Sorry boss. It's been a long week."

Gibbs stared at him shrewdly from the other end of the country. "Are they ok in the LA office now?"

"Well, Hetty's still off and I think that Kensi's going to fall over if someone breathes too hard on her, but apart from that I think that they're getting back to normal here."

Gibbs nodded. "You need any time off, just let me know. I'll clear it with the Director. We owe you for stepping up to the plate on this one."

Slightly taken aback McGee paused for a moment as he thought about it. "Thanks Boss. I have got some time off coming that HR's been pressing me to take. Let me talk to a few people and then I'll put in for that time off."

This bought him a nod from Gibbs. "You get any problems let me know. Good job on this case Tim. Book that time off. Gibbs, clear." He turned to someone offscreen and made a slashing gesture across his throat, just before the screen went dark.

Well. He needed to take a look at how long he could take off. How long could it take to become a Jedi? Weeks? Months? If he recalled correctly Luke Skywalker learnt a great deal between the evacuation of Hoth and the arrival of the Millennium Falcon on Bespin. How much could he cram in during the time he could take? Could he even do this thing at all?

He was overthinking this thing again. That was a bad sign. Then he frowned. He knew what he needed to do.

And then he'd need to hire a car.