McGee sat at his desk feeling useless. He'd forgotten to set his alarm and arrived almost an hour later than Gibbs had ordered them in that morning. His lateness had gotten him the unenviable task of driving Sgt. Neal's weepy fiancée back to her apartment. He'd thought obtaining the key to Neal's apartment from her would earn him some points, but the search had yielded nothing. A subsequent search of Dr. Neal's penthouse was even less productive; an exceedingly competent maid had cleaned it since he had last been there. McGee had hoped to spend the rest of the day looking through the hard drives of the Neal brothers' computers, but the Sergeant didn't even own one and the Doctor's, a laptop from the look of his desk, was missing.

He jumped as the phone on his desk rang. "McGee."

"Legal get us anything from Callaghan yet?"

"No boss, they're stalling. They've promised to send a representative to speak with us here sometime this afternoon, but for now they won't even give us permission to enter their building."

Gibbs muttered something that McGee decided not to try to decipher. "Are they back from the hospital yet?"

As if on cue the elevator opened, filling the squad room with the sounds of an argument. "They're just walking through the door, boss."

"Good. I'll be down in five."

McGee turned his attention to his colleagues. Ducky gave him a hopeless look and shook his head. From the tone of the conversation, McGee could tell things must be proceeding as normal between Tony and Ziva, who had not even noticed him.

"She was not offering you information in exchange for sexual favors."

"Maybe not, but she was definitely hitting on me."

"Of course she was." Ziva rolled her eyes as she placed her coat behind her desk. "And I suppose the woman in the purple cardigan kissed you on the cheek because she found you irresistible?"

"Yeah, what was up with her?"

"Head trauma." She gave him a light Gibbs slap. "She was a patient, Tony. She was petting a mop and calling it a good kitty when we were leaving."

"Huh. Oooooooh. I get it." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "You're bringing up kissing again. You must have trained for years to be so sneaky in your machinations, but I'm on to you."

"On to my what?"

"See, that was another innuendo. Oh, you need kissing, badly." He slid his arm around her waist and dipped her. "That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

McGee wondered where Tony got the guts to try something so stupid. Accidentally brushing against her arm while walking was enough to make McGee fear for his life. Not that he was afraid she'd really hurt him – it was just the awareness that she could if he gave her a good enough reason. A reason like, say, the one Tony was giving her right now. McGee had to admit she was remaining surprisingly calm. "That has to be your worst impression yet. Now let me go."

"Say the magic word."

McGee turned on his video phone as he decided it was his turn to have some fun. "Gibbs." Within five seconds, Tony and Ziva were both on the floor in a heap. They turned to look at him. "Sorry, thought I saw Gibbs. My mistake." He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

Ziva accepted a hand from Ducky as she rose. "I'd hate for you to have to visit the proctologist, McGee."

He stood up a little straighter. "Why?"

"I don't think you'll want to leave your phone up there." She raised an eyebrow as she looked him over. "Of course, I'm not making any judgments if leaving it wouldn't be a problem for you…"

"No!" he shouted. Forcing himself to relax a little, he continued, "I mean, that won't be necessary. I'll just put this away." He slipped the phone into his pocket, hoping he'd have time to show Abby the video later.

Ziva joined Tony, sitting on the edge of her desk, as Gibbs strode into the bullpen. "You three get anything useful at the hospital?"

"I believe we may have found a motive, Jethro," Ducky began. "Dr. Neal was being funded by Callaghan Pharmaceuticals in the development of a revolutionary new drug for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease. I spoke to one of his research partners; they're attempting to regenerate degraded synapses through the use of…"

"I'm sure Abby and Palmer will love to hear about it, Duck. You learn anything that helps us on this case?"

Ziva took over, "Dr. Franklin seemed nervous when we spoke to him. He wouldn't talk with us in his office but took us to a conference room down the hall and locked the door. Maybe Callaghan is being vigilant in protecting its investment. The hospital administrator we met with had nothing but glowing praise for the millions of dollars they've gifted to both the hospital and the university since they began utilizing the medical staff to augment their own research labs."

"Right, so we need to light a fire under legal to get us into Callaghan, ASAP. How soon was this magic drug of theirs supposed to hit the market?"

"Well, Dr, Franklin didn't say it in so many words," Ducky resumed, "but I think Callaghan may have been pushing them into clinical trials before they were entirely comfortable doing so. The drug is very complex, and they were worried about the potential side effects. He implied that an S orientation on the final nitrogen group could result in the formation of free radicals…"

"Ducky!" Gibbs growled.

"Why they don't require organic chemistry for agents continues to elude me. The point is, Callaghan wanted to see immediate returns on the investment they made in Neal's work and he may not have been ready. It's quite possible that they were trying to beat another company to the punch, as it were, and didn't feel they could afford to wait. It's a cutthroat business, Jethro."

"Except our Marine was shot and we don't know why."

"He may not have even been the target, boss. Maybe Dr. Neal knew something was up and asked his brother the big scary Marine to go with him to a meeting at Callaghan." Tony began to backtrack as Gibbs looked up, "Not that Marines are…"

Gibbs ignored him. "Do we even know if he had a meeting scheduled with them?"

"We couldn't find a date book in his office and the only schedule we found," Ziva paused as she pulled a plastic bag from her backpack, "was for patients' appointments and surgeries."

"What about his laptop?" McGee asked.

"I didn't see one."

"Don't worry, Probie." McGee winced as Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "If we don't find it I'll buy you a new pocket protector."