Gibbs went down to Autopsy to see Ducky the next day.

"Ah, Jethro, good morning. How may we help you this fine day? Although I fear that inclement weather is forecast for later. It makes me glad I no longer have to walk Mother's corgis although it must be said that I may be carrying a little extra weight as a result of not taking the little blighters for their daily constitutional. I really must think more about my fitness regimen ..."

"Duck?," interrupted Gibbs.

"I do beg your pardon, Jethro, I should have realised that you haven't come to visit these gloomy depths just to make small talk. How may I help?"

"Greg Archibald," said Gibbs.

"Ah, yes, Gregory. Anthony's new friend and business partner. I must say that I have been most impressed at the way Anthony has thrown himself into the movie theater business. He has proved to be most versatile and very dedicated ... but you don't want to talk about Anthony, do you? What's troubling you, Jethro?"

"Tony says that Archie has gone all quiet and reclusive on him. I tried to talk to him last night but he clammed up on me."

If Ducky felt, like Tony and Tim that the picture of Gibbs trying to draw out a taciturn Archie was an unlikely one, he was too courteous to say so.

"I must admit that he has been less forthcoming with me in recent days than when we first met. He used to enjoy telling me his mother's stories about Scotland. He even spoke about lending me her shortbread recipe".

"Any idea why he's gone all silent?" asked Gibbs.

"I sometimes wish I'd never done that psychology degree," complained Ducky, "everyone expects me to have an insight into everything. What does your gut say, Jethro, you usually rely on that."

"Doesn't seem to be saying anything much at the moment, Duck," admitted Gibbs.

"Well," said Ducky, actually more than willing to express an opinion, "it is possible that Gregory is jealous. He can see that Anthony is close to both of us and feels that we are a threat to his friendship ..."

"Hell, he sees Tony more than we do," said Gibbs with a touch of bitterness. Ducky raised an eyebrow,

"Ahem, perhaps Gregory is not the only one who's jealous?" he said gently.

"All right, Ducky, I'll admit to missing having Tony around but I'm not jealous."

Ducky might have continued the conversation but Abby burst in at that moment.

"Ah, my two favourite guys," she cooed, and gave them both a hug.

Gibbs remembered something that Tony had said yesterday, "Abs, your friend Hope, Tony said she thought the nationals might take an interest in the story she wrote about the movie theater but he hasn't heard anything."

"That's odd. She was really excited about it. She's away for a couple of days, do you want me to ask her when she gets back?"

"Can't you phone her?" asked Gibbs.

"No, she's on a technology free retreat in the middle of an ancient woodland. She says it unfries her brainwaves. Me, I can't do without my machines ... but you'd like it, Gibbs. I'll get you the name of the company that runs it."

"Don't need anyone to help me arrange to get away from it all, Abs but you could threaten McGee with it."

"Not nice, Gibbs, not nice. Timmy needs his technology. 'l'll ask Hope as soon as she gets back."

"Thanks, Abs. Hey, how do you get on with Archie?"

"Oh, I love Archie. We've had some really good, deep conversation. He's very spiritual".

"When did you last speak with him, Abigail?" asked Ducky.

"A couple of nights ago. He's very interested in my work. I was telling him all about the deadly toxins I've found over the years. He was fascinated by how difficult some of them are to detect".

"Perhaps it's just us he doesn't like," said Ducky philosophically.

"Well, I still love you both," said Abby happily as they all went back to work.

NCISNCIS

It was a couple of days before Gibbs had a chance to see Tony again. He'd told Agent Fornell that Tony was thinking of starting up a children's cinema club on Saturday mornings. He arranged to meet Tobias at the theater so he could talk about it with Tony to see if it was something Emily might enjoy.

Radhika was on duty in the coffee bar when Fornell and Gibbs arrived.

"Good evening, gentlemen," she said, "Agent Gibbs, Tony told me that you gave him a pass mark on the coffee he brewed for you. He was very proud!"

Gibbs smiled, "It wasn't bad, You must be a good teacher, This is Tobias. He prefers more 'wimpy' coffee."

"I'd be insulted," said Fornell, "but I don't want to risk burning a hole in my stomach by drinking what Jethro drinks. I'll have a cappuccino, please."

"Is Tony around?" asked Gibbs, "Tobias wants to talk to him about the new Saturday club."

"Hmmph," said Radhika discontentedly, "he is, but he shouldn't be".

"Why not?" asked Gibbs, amused that she was already so protective of her new employer.

"Because he spent the last thirty six hours throwing up," she explained and then said in a loud voice, "He should be tucked up in bed at home, resting".

Gibbs and Fornell turned round to see Tony approaching. He did indeed look a bit pale and tired. He sat down on a stool beside them.

"I'm fine," he said, "it was just a twenty-four hour bug."

"That lasted thirty six hours," said Radhika pointedly.

"Hey, I'm a nice guy, even the germs don't want to leave me."

"What was it?" asked Gibbs.

"Like I said, it was just a bug. It's going round."

"Not here, it's not," said Radhika. Gibbs found himself impressed by her tenacity.

"It's doing the rounds of my apartment block," said Tony.

"Did you call Ducky?" asked Gibbs.

"It was a twenty-four bug, well, thirty six hours, in my case," said Tony, "there was no point in calling him. Something like that, you just have to ride it out. Tobias, welcome to Seymour Boulevard. Let me get you a leaflet about the new club".

At that moment, Archie came into the coffee bar, "Oh, and let me introduce you to my partner. Arch, come over here, I want you to meet someone."

Archie came nearer.

"Arch, this is Tobias Fornell. Tobias, meet Gregory Archibald."

The two men shook hands. Fornell looked at him with a curious expression on his face. Archie spoke first,

"Nice to meet you, Mr Fornell. Are you another former colleague of Tony's?"

"No," replied Fornell and Archie seemed to relax a little.

"Fornell is an FBI agent," said Gibbs. Fornell looked a little annoyed; off duty, he preferred people not to know that he was a federal agent. Archie swallowed,

"Radhika, can I have my usual, please. I'll take it with me."

"Why not stay a few minutes," said Tony, "the next screening isn't for an hour."

"No ... I ... I want to get it all ready," said Archie and he was gone, clutching his coffee.

Tony sighed, "Can I have a cup of whatever it was you gave me earlier, Dika, it seemed to settle my stomach."

Despite being at least fifteen years Tony's junior, Radhika gave a motherly cluck and started brewing her patented stomach soother for him.

"Something up, Tobias?" asked Gibbs, seeing that his friend was looking pensively at where Archie had stood a moment or two before.

"No, nothing," said Fornell rather unconvincingly.

"Tobias?" said Gibbs with a touch of menace.

"It's nothing, Jethro. I was mistaken."

"About what?"

"About nothing. DiNozzo, tell me about this cinema club".

Tony willingly held forth for about ten minutes but then, despite the restorative effects of Radhika's brew, he began to flag. Old habits asserted themselves,

"DiNozzo, if you're not going to go home, go and lie down before you fall down," said Gibbs roughly. Tony stared at him and briefly considered standing up for himself but then decided that he didn't have the energy,

"OK," he said sulkily, "but only because I'd finished." He peeled himself off the stool, clutched his mug to his chest and tottered off to his office. Radhika looked approvingly at Gibbs and poured him a refill.

"Tobias," began Gibbs again.

"Jethro, leave it," said Fornell, "you know there are some things I can't talk to you about."

Gibbs' phone rang at that moment,

"Gibbs. OK, I'll meet you there." He put his cell back in his pocket, looked menacing at Fornell, "This isn't over but at the moment I have a missing petty officer to hunt down." He took another gulp of his coffee, looked a bit sadly at the remainder and then left. Fornell rubbed his chin thoughtfully and left shortly afterwards.

NCISNCIS

The missing petty officer kept the MCRT team occupied for the next few days so it wasn't until the weekend that Gibbs and McGee had time to go to Seymour Boulevard. Gibbs had tried to contact Fornell a few times but his calls hadn't been returned. He suspected he knew what Fornell was avoiding telling him: one of the few things that had to be kept secret were details of witness relocation.

Gibbs suspected that Archie had been given immunity from prosecution in return for testimony and then had been given a new identity. He didn't quite understand why Archie, or whatever his real name was, would have risked his safety by hooking up with DiNozzo but he'd probably underestimated how successful Tony would be in drawing people to the rundown theater. Gibbs worried also that he might be after Tony's money; he was after all, better off than anyone had suspected.

Gibbs had decided that he would need to let McGee in on his suspicions and get him to hack into the FBI records but thought he would try and get some information out of Archie first. McGee had said that he was planning on going to the theater early on Saturday to load some new software to the computer in the booking office. Gibbs said he would go along as well because he wanted to look at some of the seats in the theater which Tony wanted help with restoring.

McGee and Gibbs arrived to find Tony standing forlornly in front of the lobby. The glass doors were cracked and bent and one was coming off its hinges.

"What happened, Tony?" asked Tim, "are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Waiting for Metro. I think it's been rammed. See the tyre marks. Someone tried to bash their way in. I was in the coffee bar, heard a screech and a crash but by the time I got out here, the car was gone".

"It'll be on your security cameras won't it?" asked Tim.

Tony winced, "The one by the door's not up and running yet. Another job I was meant to get round to but that dammed stomach flu put me behind schedule. This is payback for all the time I moaned about victims who didn't have their security in place – now I know how easy it is not to get round to it."

"Where's Archie?" asked Gibbs.

"Out," said Tony

"Out?" said McGee, "I thought he never left the building."

"He's not Howard Hughes you know. He goes to visit a buddy on Saturday mornings. He'll be back soon. Ah, here's Metro." Tony went to meet the officers who had just arrived and explained what had happened.

"McGee," said Gibbs, "we're going to the Navy Yard,"

"Boss," said McGee, "shouldn't we stay and help Tony? There's a mess to clear up here."

"There's another mess which needs clearing up. Come on."

Tony looked surprised when he saw Gibbs and McGee speed past in the car but he assumed they'd got a call.

NCISNCIS

McGee followed Gibbs into the squad room,

"Boss, what's all this about?"

"Call Abby in, we'll need her too."

"Boss, what should I tell her?"

"I need you to hack into the FBI computer and find out everything about Gregory Archibald."

"Why?"

"Because he's up to no good. He's been avoiding Ducky and me and generally laying low."

"I don't think that's actually a crime, Boss".

"The only person he seems to want to talk to is Abby ... about poison. And then, by coincidence, Tony goes down with food poisoning," continued Gibbs.

"But Tony said everyone in his building had been ill," protested McGee.

"And Fornell went all squirrelly when he saw him. Pretty sure he recognised him from a witness relocation program".

"You think Tony's in danger?" gasped Tim, already switching his computer on.

"There's something not right," said Gibbs, " and that car ramming just proves it. Have you ever known Archie not to be there but suddenly, when there's an accident he's not around!"

Abby arrived half an hour later with Ziva in tow: they had been having coffee and chocolate muffins in their favourite bakery when Abby got the call from McGee.

"I can't believe Archie would hurt Tony," wailed Abby, "he seems so sweet."

"Appearances can be deceptive, Abby," said Ziva sensibly.

"Gibbs thinks he might have poisoned Tony," said Tim.

"What?! Oh, Gibbs, do you think that's why he seemed so interested in my poisoning cases?" said a stricken Abby.

Gibbs nodded grimly.

"But, Gibbs, you'd have to be a really good scientist to use those poisons, they're really tricky and I don't think Archie is a good scientist – he didn't seem to understand much of what I was saying."

"Well, he would not want to give you the impression that he was going to poison Tony, would he?" said Ziva.

Abby wrung her hands in distress.

"Although poisoning someone seems a rather subtle approach. It does not seem to go with someone trying to smash a door down," mused Ziva.

"Things aren't always logical," said Gibbs.

"That is true, Gibbs," said Ziva, "er ... may I ask how we are justifying our involvement? Tony is, after all, no longer a federal agent. Do we have any jurisdiction?"

"That's a good point, Boss," said McGee, "not that I don't want to be doing this hacking, you understand".

"Archibald, or whatever his real name is, used to be in the Marine Corps. Or so he says. I reckon that gives us 'jurisdiction' don't you, Agent McGee?" said Gibbs.

The team all nodded and got to their various tasks. They barely spoke for about two hours but then McGee broke the silence.

"I found him. You were right, Boss, he is in the witness relocation program".

"I knew it," said Gibbs triumphantly, "what you got, Tim?"

"Real name is Greg Arbuthnot. Born 1947 to Sylvia and George Arbuthnot. Sylvia was from Scotland originally – guess that part of his story was true. Spent five years in the Marine Corps, so that was real too. Left the corps and went to work in Hollywood as a cameraman. Married in 1970 to Janie Thompson, twin boys born in 1972. Left Hollywood and went to work as a film projectionist for a chain of theaters, got promoted to be a manager and then an area manager. He was doing well ..."

Ziva interrupted him, she pointed to the TV,

"Look, that is Tony's theater, is it not?"

The team looked where she was pointing, They could see several police cars surrounding Seymour Boulevard. A caption below read, "Potential hostage situation unfolding at Washington movie theater."

Ziva, McGee and Gibbs grabbed their weapons and gear and headed out. McGee took his lap top as well and continued to tap into it as they ran. Gibbs called Fornell,

"Fornell, pick up, damn you. Archibald is holding Tony hostage. Get down there, NOW!"