McGee had never seen the stealth suit in action, but Ziva's description had been intense. The Israeli agent's eyes had lit up, telling them how the big marine—Franks, it was—had simply vanished in the low light of the training room. Ziva had known the man was coming for her, had been watching and listening, and still hadn't been able to detect his approach. It was pretty obvious that Ziva wanted one of those stealth suits for herself, and it was equally as obvious that the United States government was going to be rather stingy in handing them out.

Now McGee had possession of one. It wasn't big enough to cover his frame—apparently Dr. Dovely hadn't wanted to waste the time and energy making the prototype big enough for the average man. Something just to cover the basics and enough to prove her point was what she had been after—but it would have to do. His hands and feet stuck out of the ends, and he felt damn silly wearing this silky and tight-fitting cat suit that made him look like a giant sperm in an old Woody Allen movie. He knew that that was what he looked like, because DiNozzo, shortly before passing out again, had told him so. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) was the movie, and DiNozzo had chuckled, told him the name and the reference, and then quietly put his head back down and closed his eyes.

McGee couldn't help himself; he had to take one last moment to check the pulse at Tony's throat. It was there, but fast and faint. Tony didn't object to McGee's actions, and that scared him more than anything else. DiNozzo always razzed McGee. It was in the man's nature; if he didn't, then there was something wrong.

There was a big something wrong right now.

Time to see if he could fix it.

Time to see if this popular set of pajamas lived up to its reputation.

McGee took off his shoes. He needed the quiet more than he needed the protection against the sharp rocks. One sound, one slip that sent a shower of rocks cascading, and it would be all over. He couldn't do anything about his hands and feet protruding beyond the cuffs of the garment, but he could pull the hood up and over his head. There was a patch for the eyes, he discovered, a band that was covered more lightly and permitted him to see but, he hoped, not be seen.

It would have to do. McGee crept to the edge of the pocket cave where he and DiNozzo had been dumped, peering around the rim to try to locate the two that had hijacked the NCIS agents.

The main cave where Beck and Aiello were sitting was almost as dark as the pocket that McGee had just left, with the sole light a small campfire in the center ringed with stones to prevent it from scooting out of control. The pair had chosen to conserve the battery on the flashlight that stood on its end nearby, and they both were seated on convenient rocks doubling as un-upholstered easy chairs. Aiello had a bottle of something in his hand, either water or vodka. It was clear, and finding out what the liquid was would contribute nothing to McGee's escape attempt. McGee ignored it.

Would this work? McGee took a deep breath, and stepped out. He froze, his exposed hands tucked beneath his armpits to shield them from view. He waited, paused, watched to see if they noticed him.

They didn't. He took another step. Aiello took another swig from his bottle, and didn't offer it to Beck. McGee inched forward, watching the pair wait, sticking to the shadows and hugging the wall, keeping his back against the rock and unexposed.

Almost out.

"Think we ought to check on our guests?"

"You can if you want to, sergeant. Don't think they're going anywhere."

"They're pretty quiet."

"Probably working on the ropes. That'll keep 'em busy."

"Guess you're right. When is the bitch going to get here? I'd rather not spend all night here."

"She should be here any moment. As soon as she ditches the others in that little group, she can get here, take possession of the suit and the two NCIS guys, and we're all out of here."

"Swiss bank accounts, right?"

"Yours and mine, Aiello. You figure on how you're going to get out of the country?"

"Canadian border, to start. You?"

"Expensive passport with a new name. I've always wanted to travel, and not to Iraq." Short burst of laughter. "Little short on tourist attractions."

"Long on sand," Aiello agreed.

It didn't matter. McGee was through the cave where the two men waited, and almost safe. He exposed his hands once more, needing them to crawl forward and grab hold of rocks to slither out toward the surface. It had taken twenty minutes to get from the outside to the cavern where Beck and Aiello had set up shop, but that was dragging an injured comrade with him. McGee resolved to see if he could cut that time in half. After that, he figured, heading east at top speed would be the fastest way to get to a secure source for communication. East was the direction of the Heisenburg Research Facility, where those two eighteen year old guards had guns and, more importantly, phones.

Priority one: get the prototype suit to someone safe, like senior NCIS Agent Gibbs. Priority two: bring back help for Tony DiNozzo.

McGee climbed toward the surface of the cave.

The MPs had the straightforward job: guarding the members of the 'Wood Sprite' Circle once they were—vociferously!—removed from their place of worship. There were six of them so far: Ziva had removed three, frog-marching them back to where the cars sat with the MPs, Gibbs two, and Lt. Cmdr. Lord, in charge of the MPs, had accounted for one.

Gibbs approached the group, Lord behind him. "How many of you are there?" he demanded.

One—a tall and stringy man with bad skin—lifted his chin. "You are defiling our grove. You have no right to do this!"

Gibbs chose not to close his eyes in an unheard prayer for patience. "This is national security," he said calmly. If any of his team had been within earshot, they could have told the little 'sprites' that crossing Gibbs when he used that tone of voice was simply asking for trouble. "If you don't believe me, then perhaps you'll believe the judge when he sentences you to five years for obstruction."

"Judge?" the man squeaked. He tried to grow a spine. "What about separation of church and state?"

Another's nerve broke, either from fear or good sense; Gibbs didn't care. "There were six of us," she said tremulously. "I think."

"You think?" Gibbs himself thought she was wrong. They already had six, and the head chanter was missing.

"Seven."

"Nine."

"Eight." The answers spilled out of the cowed group.

Gawd. Now Gibbs did close his eyes. "Which is it?"

It took too long, and it took someone counting the cars that the group had arrived in as well as determining who was environmentally conscious by car-pooling, and the answer turned out to be seven, best as everyone could figure. Gibbs scowled at the group. He really hoped that they were right, because there were three more indistinct red blobs dotting the infra-red landscape. There ought to have been five: Smirnakov and four stealth-suited sergeants, all of whom Gibbs wanted in his possession. At this moment it didn't matter if the stealth squad was innocent; the suits were not in direct United States Government control, and that made the situation dangerous. Who deserved brig time was something that could get figured out later, after the crisis was over.

Five people: Smirnakov and four sergeants. Only three were showing up on the proverbial radar, but Gibbs knew better than to count on that. Those sergeants were well-trained, and knew that the suits wouldn't protect them from heat sensors. Quite likely they'd figured out a few fox holes to drop themselves into periodically to avoid being detected. Gibbs stared out onto the landscapes, watching those red blobs.

The red blobs were getting bigger, getting man-shaped. Gibbs furrowed his brows; what were they doing? At his side, he could feel Ziva David asking the very same question of herself.

Then he smiled grimly. He knew exactly what they were doing, and was more than happy to allow them to do it.

"Watch yourselves, people," he cautioned the MPs. "We're about to have visitors."

Three heat shivers, barely able to be seen in the night, quivered into the clearing. Gibbs blinked. Even knowing that they were there, he could still hardly see them. Only by concentrating on the outline of each heat wave could he distinguish where they were. "Hands in the air, gentlemen," he told the three.

"Can we pull off the hoods, sir?"

"Just do it slowly, sergeant." Gibbs pointed his handgun at the disembodied voice. "You first."

The quivering in the air reached up unseen hands—and a head appeared, floating in the night like a bad outtake from GhostBusters. Gibbs listened briefly for a quote from DiNozzo before reminding himself that the man was missing, along with another member of Gibbs' team. "Mind telling me what you're doing out here, sergeant?" he drawled.

Sgt. Franks tried to shrug sheepishly, but the non-verbal communication was wasted on those who couldn't see it. "Seemed like we were getting roped into a conspiracy, sir," he offered. "Not one of us wanted to be on trial for treason. We kind of thought that we needed to figure out what was going on before it got that far."

"Didn't trust me and mine to find out the truth, sergeant?" Gibbs' voice was mild even if the words were scathing.

Franks winced, and kept his mouth shut.

Gibbs gave orders. "Take off the suits, gentlemen, and hand them over to Commander Lord. Until further notice, you will not be using them for practice or any other purpose. You're going to be sitting on the ground with a few MPs empowered to shoot you if you try to go anywhere. Any problem with that?"

"No, sir."

"Good." He looked them over, noting that there were only three. "Where's Aiello?"

The three exchanged glances. "Couldn't find him," Medford muttered. "That surprise you? Sir?" he tacked on belatedly.

"The three of you seemed to find each other fairly easily," Ziva pointed out. "What makes Sgt. Aiello different?"

None of the three had an answer for her.

"Well?" Gibbs prodded.

Medford turned defiant eyes on him. "It wasn't so long ago that you were breathing down my neck, sir," he spat. "You thought I was a traitor to my country, sir."

"Just going where the evidence took me, sergeant," Gibbs said, unmoved. "That evidence pointed me at you and Mrs. Rickover. You got a problem with me finding out you're innocent?"

Medford flushed. "No, sir."

Gibbs pushed. "You got a problem turning in a traitor, sergeant?"

The night covered up the brighter red. "No, sir."

"You worried that Aiello might not be as upstanding as the rest of you?"

"He's a good man, sir," Franks pushed in. "We're a team."

"Then help me prove his innocence," Gibbs told him. "If he's innocent, he's got nothing to fear." Gibbs applied the screws. "Right now, I've got a missing suit, and a missing prototype suit. I need to get both back, and that's my priority. I don't want anyone getting hurt. If you've got an idea on how to pull Aiello in, I'd like to hear it."

"We could go out—"

"The three of you are still suspects," Gibbs said flatly. "You're staying here. Find another way."

"Agent Gibbs!" Lord broke in, still scanning the countryside with the infra-red glasses. "There's another suit! He's running!"

"Which direction?" Gibbs snapped around, his gun in his hand, Ziva too ready to fire.

"At a right angle to our location, sir! Moving fast!"

No time to think, no time for a considered decision. It was either Sgt. Aiello—who could be either innocent or guilty, no way to tell at this moment—or it could be someone wearing the prototype suit. Gibbs squinted, trying to see the running figure in the dark night. He stared, trying to make the figure come clear—yes! It was the prototype suit. Gibbs could almost see the hands pumping along. He couldn't tell how large the figure was, if it matched that of Smirnakov, and at the moment it didn't matter: the suit was headed away from them. The suit was not headed toward a place where Gibbs could take possession of it. The suit was trying to escape. Not on my watch.

The figure was almost impossible to see, dipping and weaving in the dim light, the hands flashing in and out of visibility. Gibbs sighted on the running body, feeling more than see Ziva take up the same stance, anticipating where the heat shivers were headed. This was vital; the suspect couldn't be allowed to escape. He exhaled, the gun settling onto the target, squeezing the trigger. Ziva's own shot went off at the same instant—maybe a micro-second sooner or later, neither one would be able to say for certain—and the figure jerked and stumbled, falling to the ground.

No choice. No better options—the new technology couldn't be allowed to fall into foreign hands. National Security depended on it. They couldn't allow Smirnakov to get her hands on it. It was a righteous shoot.

Secure the suspect. Ziva dashed ahead, taking advantage of knees that hadn't been through two wars. She kicked the rock away from the suspect's bare hand, squatting to grab hold of the figure, Gibbs behind her with his handgun trained on the suspect. Even in the dim light of dusk they could see the blood leaking out from a gut wound. The other bullet had hit the shoulder.

"Who are you?" Gibbs demanded harshly.

Ziva ripped the mask off of the suspect. Hazel eyes, pain-filled and bewildered, looked up at Gibbs from his spot on the ground.

The 'suspect' coughed, blood springing to his lips. "If you wanted to fire me, boss, you could have just told me…"

The eyes closed.

Gibbs went cold, but it didn't slow him down. "I need an ambulance over here!"