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A/N. Apologies for the delay in uploading the fourth instalment of the story – my brain went to sleep on me when I tried to write it last night. Hope it was worth the wait. ;-)

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McGee's satellite navigation system had guided him flawlessly to his destination and he pulled up outside the house of former NCIS special agent Tom Fitzgerald. After quickly calling Gibbs' phone to check in with his team, he climbed out of the car and approached the front door. He pressed his finger onto the doorbell and waited. After what must have been three or four minutes, a harassed-looking man with silver hair finally answered.

'Mr Fitzgerald?' McGee asked, pulling out his NCIS identification. The older man nodded.

'That's me,' he answered. McGee decided to go for the direct approach.

'Special Agent Timothy McGee. I think you know why I'm here.' Fitzgerald nodded again and held open the door.

'I hadn't expected anyone to figure it out quite so soon, but I've been waiting for this day for months. It was only going to take so long before somebody noticed. You'd better come in.'

--

Abby picked up on the fourth ring but all Tony could hear was the sound of one of her usual music choices blaring in the background.

'Abbs, can you turn that noise down?' DiNozzo demanded. Suddenly there was silence on the other end of the phone.

'Hey Tony, what's up?' Abby's voice was now clearly audible down the line. Tony sighed in relief.

'You missed your one-hour check-in, is everything ok?'

'That can't be right,' she replied immediately, 'I only got here at…' she glanced at her watch then did a double-take. 'Oh. Sorry Tony, I must have gotten distracted.' Ziva's voice could clearly be heard down the phone line.

'Abby, you do realise that our current subject of investigation means that even your lab is not safe. Unless you are with one of us you cannot afford to let your guard down and you really must adhere strictly to your check-in times.'

'I know, Ziva, I'm sorry,' Abby sounded suitably chastised. 'Anyway, since you're on, how's Gibbs?'

'He was a lot more coherent when Ducky woke him up,' Tony informed her. He grinned. 'Ducky's still up there talking to him now. Gibbs fell asleep five minutes in but Ducky didn't seem to mind. Anyway, what progress?'

'Tony, I've been here like, an hour!' Abby protested. DiNozzo wasn't deterred.

'So what have you found?'

'I decided to start with the most recent, so I pulled the evidence from the Assistant Director's murder,' she began. 'There were blood samples from two different sources discovered at the scene – the director's and an unknown, so it looks like he at least managed to injure the guy who killed him. It was a guy, by the way – the amelogenin result confirms it. They managed to get a full DNA profile and ran it through the Federal Database but there were no hits. They sent the results to Interpol but there's a lot of variation between the short tandem repeats analysed in each country so they were never going to get an exact match. Even so, no hits on the common loci. Looks like whoever was responsible managed to stay below the radar, at least until last year. I did find something interesting though. About seven months ago, the profile was removed from the system. Usually they leave them on forever in case anyone who gets added to the database later matches up. The only reason I can think of for removing an evidence profile from the database is that you don't want the source to be identified. Fortunately somebody from the analysis lab thought to add a hardcopy to the file. I've loaded the profile back into the system and I'm running it through the database right now. No results yet.' She paused. 'Ooh, have you been taking lessons from Gibbs?'

'What have you got, Abbs?' Tony replied, correctly interpreting from her question that the search had come up positive.

'Emailing it over now,' she responded. 'Sample matches a body pulled out of the Potomac six and a half months ago identified by facial recognition software as one Anton Kasparov, Russian citizen. He's well known to the CIA and was suspected of stealing naval codes in the mid-1980s. His murder is still unsolved. I'm sending you everything we've got on him.'

'Nice work, Abby,' DiNozzo congratulated her. 'Keep digging and we'll talk to you again in an hour…and be careful.' Tony hung up the phone and glanced across at Ziva. 'Looks like we're on to something.' She smiled back at him.

'There is hope that we may save the team yet,' she admitted. 'Thank you, Tony, for not allowing us to give up.' He returned her smile with a dazzling one of his own.

'Well,' he answered playfully, 'I have to confess to a certain amount of self-interest. I really don't like boats all that much. Since we got stuck on the Chimera I've found them kind of…'

'Spooky?' she suggested. He laughed.

'Besides, where else would I find a partner with such amazing…oww!' he finished as Ziva cuffed him around the head, 'ninja skills…I was going to say ninja skills!' Before she could reply, Gibbs' phone rang again. This time it was McGee.

'Fitzgerald was quite happy to tell me everything,' he reported. 'He'd been expecting someone to put the pieces together for a while, actually. When the Assistant Director was murdered, everyone expected Fitzgerald to take his place, but a day later his elder daughter died in what appeared to be a climbing accident. That evening he received an email containing two attachments. The first was of his daughter falling backwards off a cliff, videoed from above. The second contained clips of his younger daughter leaving college, going to work, arriving home… There was a message with the attachments – "Resign or she's next". Apparently he suspected Vance of involvement but of course he didn't have any evidence and wasn't prepared to risk his other daughter's life so he did as the message asked. He's a smart guy though – he kept the email. The trail isn't as new as I'd like but I managed to partially trace the origin of the mail. It was sent from the NCIS mainframe. If Vance sent it, he covered his tracks well – I couldn't get any further. I did have a look at the electronic signatures on the video files though. I haven't narrowed it down to an exact model yet but the camera used was definitely of Russian origin.'

'Good work, McGee.' DiNozzo gave the younger agent one of his rare compliments. 'Why don't you head back here and we'll consider our next move. Could you call in and pick up some pizza for Ducky, Ziva, you and me on your way back, oh, and call into NCIS and drop off something for Abby. There should be a credit card in my glove box; just this once you can forge my signature.'

'On it Tony,' McGee readily agreed. 'I'll be there in an hour. You don't want me to get anything for Gibbs?'

'Nope, I have something else in mind for Gibbs,' DiNozzo replied mysteriously.

--

Gibbs was drifting in and out of wakefulness, faintly aware of his friend's voice offering a continuous commentary on what could be any number of subjects. One thing that could be said for Ducky was that he was never short of something to talk about. His presence was oddly comforting; in fact, the constant presence of at least one member of his team over the last several hours had made him feel much less alone than he had before DiNozzo had shown up in his basement. Ever since Tony had taken charge earlier in the day, he had felt as though a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

'Wakey wakey, Boss.' DiNozzo's excessively cheerful voice penetrated his thoughts. Then again, he considered, too much power was never a good thing. He cracked open one eye then the other, surprised as his friend and team-mate waved a bowl of steaming liquid under his nose.

'Chicken soup, DiNozzo?' Even though eating was the last thing on his mind right now, curiosity got the better of him.

'DiNozzo special chicken soup,' he was immediately corrected.

'You made it?'

'Well… I reheated it,' the younger man admitted. 'Expertly, I might add. Eat it, it's good for you.'

'I'm really not hungry, Tony,' he replied. The way he felt, food just didn't have the slightest appeal, though he did appreciate the thought.

'Just a little bit?' Tony persisted, 'The only thing you've eaten in days is that sandwich I made you earlier. You really could do with the nutrients. Of course, McGee's on his way back with pizza. I could call and ask him to get you a spicy pepperoni if you won't eat the soup.' Gibbs was sure that if he could see himself, there would be a noticeable green tinge to his features as he thought about the pizza. He shuddered.

'Maybe I'll stick with the soup,' he conceded, wondering how little he could get away with eating. With Ziva's assistance he managed to pull himself to a sitting position and Tony handed over the tray of soup. He really didn't think he could face it. Maybe if he just sat and held the spoon for a while…

Fortunately for Gibbs, the sound of the front door slamming downstairs drew everyone's attention from the amount of soup he wasn't eating. The noise was followed by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and McGee appeared in the doorway.

'Hey guys, I think we've got something,' he began breathlessly, 'Abby filled me in on the dead Russian in the frame for the Assistant Director's murder. The name sounded familiar so I tried to remember where I'd heard it before. I figured it out. When I was trying to figure out Decker's code, I came across an old case file. In 1985, a naval warrant office called Walker was convicted of selling codes to the Russians. I pulled the file and found that Kasparov was one of his suspected contacts, though there was never enough evidence to arrest him. I remembered it particularly because Vance seemed really familiar with the case. I did a little more digging. The investigation was carried out by NIS, as NCIS was known back then. The investigating team brought in a probationary agent to help with the investigation because of his advanced training in cryptography. No prizes for guessing who the agent was.'

'I'm thinking it wasn't John Nash?' DiNozzo concluded. 'Let me think. Could it possibly have been our very own Director Leon Vance?'