Nikki looked up as Vance lead Gibbs and Ziva into MTAC. A large, hand drawn map of the recovery room was pinned up on the side wall and one of the techs was adding names to the beds inked onto the paper.

"It looks like you're making progress, why don't you bring Gibbs up to speed with what you've been working on."

"Of course, Director." Nikki moved closer to the wall with a stack of photos in her hands. "We've been analyzing the security footage from both the recovery room and the doorway and we noticed that there is one section of the room that none of the cameras reach."

"Convenient." Ziva stared at the corner of the map that Nikki was pointing at. "Three beds are in that section and the middle cubicle is where I found McGee's phone."

"I know. We've identified the patients in the other beds using photo recognition and by process of elimination, we've determined that two of the three mystery patients were McGee and a Lieutenant Tyler Johnson."

"And the third?" Gibbs looked around as he listened. The room was filled with both the normal staff of MTAC and a variety of men and women from the cybercrimes unit, each tracking one individual patient from their arrival on the floor to their transfer out of recovery.

"See for yourself." Nikki handed the photos to Gibbs, explaining as he, Ziva and Vance looked through them. "The head nurse met this patient at the elevator and personally escorted his bed into recovery while managing to keep between him and every security camera in the place."

Gibbs stared at the now familiar platinum blonde hair. "This was well planned out."

"I believe so, Agent Gibbs. None of the other nurses disappeared into that section of the room until the apparent emergency at 10.05, so it looks like she was the only one to take care of those patients."

Steely blue eyes narrowed as he visualized exactly how it had gone down. "Can you tell me which nurse cared for each of the rest of the patients?"

Obviously anticipating the question, Nikki held out her hand and tapped the map, drawing their attention to circled numbers next to each of the beds and the list of nurses at the bottom of the page, each with an assigned number. Before she could say anything, one of the techs squeezed past her to add several more notations.

"That's the last of the footage, Agent Jardine. We'll have all the information uploaded momentarily, and then Agent Gibbs can print a clean copy." Behind them, Vance just rolled his eyes as Gibbs took the hastily scribbled rough copy from the wall.

"Thanks, but I'm more of a hands-on kind of guy." He looked closely at the names at the bottom of the page, mentally comparing them to the employee files he'd scanned while Ziva drove them back. "We'll start with Lisa Duncan."

"Hey Tony, how's he doing?" Palmer was whispering, hoping to not wake the sleeping man, as he held up a bag of food. DiNozzo grinned at the offering and with a jerk of his head sent Palmer over by the window. Tony joined him and eagerly took the sandwich from the bag.

"Thanks, Jimmy, I was starving."

"Sorry it's not pizza, but I thought the smell would be too strong." Jimmy dug out the second sandwich before tossing a bag of chips to Tony.

It had been an underhand toss and easy to catch, but DiNozzo still had to put the ham sandwich down to open the chips. "Yeah, that probably wouldn't help, he was pretty nauseous the last time he woke up."

Jimmy scanned over the medical chart. "I see that. It's pretty common after being under anesthesia for that long. He was supposed to have been given a first round of anti-nausea meds about the time he went missing. Luckily he didn't get them because the interaction between those meds and the massive amount of Propofol probably would have been fatal."

Tony looked up. "But it's been long enough now, right?"

"Oh, yeah, it's out of his bloodstream now." Palmer juggled the chart and his food as he sat down, feeling guilty for alarming his friend. "It will take a while before the effects wear off, but it won't react with any other medications now."

"I'm glad we have your approval." Dr. Morrison walked in, followed by two nurses. He was smiling slightly, having been informed by Ducky that Palmer would be part of the protection detail. After the lab fiasco with the first blood sample, he had decided not to argue. Instead, he waved Palmer over to join him as he examined McGee.

The poking and prodding caused the sleepy green eyes to open, which was part of the intent. "Agent McGee, how are you feeling?"

"I... I can't move my arm."

Dr. Morrison tried to reassure him. "That's to be expected, we're using a nerve block while it heals." He hesitated, not knowing how much the others in the room knew about the original injury. Tony realized the problem and stepped in, telling Tim more of what had happened to him and also letting Dr. Morrison know that Tim had confided in him – eventually.

"The scar tissue from the dog bite started to put pressure on one of the nerves, Tim. Dr. Morrison operated to clean it up." He waited while McGee's forehead creased in thought.

"Gormley?"

"Yeah, he grabbed you, yanked you around by the arm and made it worse." Tony smiled as another memory clicked into place for the junior agent, but his happiness was short-lived.

"I told you?"

"Well, kind of. The point is that you are starting to remember more and that's a good thing." Even Dr. Morrison had to laugh at the hopeful expression on DiNozzo's face.

"Yes, that is a good thing, so let's see if this progress means you're feeling better. How about seeing if you can sit up?"

With Tony at one side and Palmer at the other, they soon had McGee semi-upright. While the nurse raised the bed up Tony rubbed his back, coaxing him through the dizziness and nausea the movement caused.

Needing to keep a hands on approach, Vance joined Gibbs and Ziva as they stopped in the lab on their way to interrogation. Gibbs spoke up over the sound of the music. "Abs, how soon before you have results?"

Startled, she spun around before hitting the remote for the music. "Hey, Gibbs, I have some results, just not enough to put things together." She brought up a spread sheet on the largest plasma in the lab. "See, I'm charting out which drugs were in which length of IV tubing, which drugs were in which needles from the sharps container and which needles were injected into the tubing and which needles went directly into skin. I'm also running every DNA sample we've recovered, plus the blood from the bodies. It would be quicker, but I've maxed out all my babies."

"Give me a list, Miss Sciuto, and I'll see if I can get some loaner equipment from another agency." Vance glanced around, making a mental note to have more tables brought in for the added equipment. "Do you need any additional manpower?"

To her credit, Abby thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "No, but a second Mass Spec would be awesome."

He was already dialing his phone as he turned to leave, but pointed a finger at her before he reached the door. "Loaners, Miss Sciuto, don't start naming anything."

Gibbs reviewed the files carefully before confirming which nurse to interrogate. Ziva raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything as she brought the woman into Interrogation Room Two and left her for Gibbs. He stood at the two-way mirror, watching silently as Ziva joined him. When the woman began twisting the diamond ring on her left hand, he made his move, entering the room silently.

"So, were you in on it, or just an accessory after the fact, Lt. Duncan?"

"What? I haven't done anything wrong, sir, I'm just a nurse." She may not have done anything, but she couldn't look Gibbs in the eye either.

He let her squirm for a few more minutes. "Something was off about today, though, wasn't it?"

"She'd never been that possessive of a patient before."

"She, who?"

"Brenda..." Lisa looked down at her ring again. "Capt Brenda Andrews, she's in charge of Recovery. Please, I just finished nursing school this year and I'm supposed to get married next month... I don't want to get in trouble with my commanding officer."

"Just tell us the truth. Your CO would want you to be honest." Gibbs watched as fear and conscious battled across her face as she chewed her lip. Finally she nodded and took a deep breath.

"Sometimes Brenda takes a special interest in a patient. I didn't think anything about it at first, I mean she seemed to know the families involved so it didn't seem that odd, but a couple of weeks ago I saw one of the relatives give her money."

Gibbs was floored. "She was accepting money to give better care?" He looked over his shoulder, at the mirror, knowing that Ziva would already be on it.

"I think so, sir. We're not even supposed to take tips, but she's my direct supervisor." Lisa shrugged, not realizing what kind of a clue she was giving. "Brenda wouldn't let any of us even near the patient today, I never even saw his face until he coded. His family must have paid a lot to give him special care."

At this point Gibbs' questions would have been about what kind of special care they were paying for, but instead he spread out the diagram of the recovery room. "Show me which bed was the mystery patient's?" It wasn't a surprise when she pointed out the cubicle next to McGee's, nor was it a surprise when she picked out the picture of Colonel Harden when Gibbs laid out over a dozen photos of the bodies currently in Autopsy.

Dismissed, Lisa stopped at the door. "This isn't going to interfere with Brenda's trip is it? I mean she was just giving them a little extra care."

Gibbs let her open the door before he asked. "What trip?"

"Cancun, I heard her confirm her reservations this morning." She gave a wistful smile. It must be nice, Bobby and I are going to honeymoon at his grandparent's farm."

Ziva joined Gibbs and watched Lisa as another agent escorted her out. "I do not believe I was ever that young and innocent."

Gibbs had to smirk at her words. "I sure as heck wasn't. Let me know when you have something on Capt Andrews' financial records and start looking into the grieving widow. Let's see if we can figure out what kind of care she was willing to pay for. I'll let the Director know what we've found."

"Okay Tim, let's see how you do at standing." Dr. Morrison seemed encouraged by his last exam of the young man. With one arm strapped tightly against his body Tim had trouble pulling himself upright so Tony reached out to take his right hand and froze.

"Tony?"

Instead of answering his friend, Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at his backpack. Palmer grabbed the bag as he peered over DiNozzo's shoulder. "How'd we miss that?"

Confused, Tim looked down at his hand, noting for the first time the broken, jagged nail. "When did that happen? I'm usually pretty careful about..."

"Yeah, well," A week ago, Tony would have made a joke about McGee's usually well manicured nails. Today he was thrilled to see the damage. "It had to happen when you were fighting with your attacker. If' we're lucky, there will be..." His voice trailed off as he accepted the needed supplies from Palmer, but McGee understood as he held his hand out for Tony to scrape under the torn nail, breathing out his answer.

"DNA... Wait, what attacker?"

"So you're telling me that we've got a whole lot of suspicion and circumstantial evidence, but not a shred of solid evidence against our suspect, no confirmed murder victim and a witness that can't remember."

"That's it in a nutshell, Leon. Ducky is still working on the most likely body and Ziva is looking into the nurse's background and financials, seeing if anything leads back to the wife." Gibbs glared at his empty coffee cup, almost desperate enough to refill it from the break room.

Vance leaned back and rubbed the sides of his face. "SecNav and the hospital administrator are not going to like this one bit. It's bad enough that we're accusing one of their nurses of accepting money from patient's families. If your theory is right, I don't have to tell you what kind of fallout there will be. Just keep me in the loop, I don't want to be blindsided when this all goes down."

Gibbs ignored the obvious dismissal when Vance returned to the paperwork on his desk. Vance pretended to read the page for another minute before sighing and putting the papers back down, waiting for him to speak. "You knew about McGee's surgery."

"I signed off on the paperwork."

"Paperwork that should have gone to me, first."

"You suggesting that I should have denied a medically necessary procedure because he didn't follow protocol?"

"Of course not." Gibbs took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm. "He didn't trust me enough to come to me."

"And you have a problem with that?"

"Hell, yes, I have a problem with that."

"So then, fix it." When Gibbs glared at him, Vance again leaned back in his chair. "Look, Gibbs, he didn't tell me the reasons he couldn't go to you, but it wasn't hard enough to figure out and the last I heard, you were a pretty good investigator. What is it you tell your people?"

Gibbs hated it when his own words were turned back against him, but he had to admit Vance had a point. "Follow the evidence." He knew he was dangerously close to whining. "DiNozzo knows, so does Palmer."

"Be thankful for that, he might not have survived otherwise."