McGee stared at the dark screen of the computer.

The entire last hour was as blank as the screen in front of him. McGee dimly remembered stumbling out of the water, crawling up onto the bank of the river that had finally slowed to something that he could wade through. Had he spotted a cabin? Must have, because he was currently inside it. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what it looked like from the outside. That part of his life was completely missing.

The door had stopped him. He wasn't Ziva or Gibbs, to be skilled at picking the lock to the door. There were shards of glass on the floor of the cabin, twinkling in the late morning sun, next to the wall. Either McGee had gotten himself inside by breaking the window or he'd found it already broken. McGee hoped it was the latter; breaking and entering, even under these circumstances, was not something that he wanted to think himself capable of doing.

His side throbbed. When he'd taken his hand away, it had been covered with blood and McGee remembered making the conscious decision not to investigate his injury any further. There was nothing he could do about it, and looking at it would only make him feel worse.

Instead, he'd stumbled toward the piece of equipment that would always draw his attention: a computer. A laptop, to be more exact, and one that still possessed a modicum of power in the battery. McGee used that power to send an urgent email message to someone that he knew could decipher where this message had originated: Abby Sciutto.

Had the message gone through? Midway through one-handedly typing the missive the little balloon had popped up advising him to save his work before he lost it all together, and that plugging the power cord into the wall would be a very good idea. The bars indicating signal strength from The Outside World were also fading, advising NCIS Agent McGee that he should consider himself damn lucky that the laptop had WiFi capability instead of needing to be hooking into the phone line—which was already dead.

Plugging the laptop into the wall would have been a good idea if there was any power flowing through the outlet, but McGee had already discovered that electrical service to the cabin was a pipe dream. The only energy entering the place was sunlight provided by the windows and the owner of the cabin had neglected to supply the place with high end solar panels or any other alternate form of energy beyond a wood-burning stove. Somehow McGee strongly doubted that the energy from stove could be harnessed to successfully power the laptop even if he had the strength left to get a fire started.

The screen went black; the last vestiges of power had been drained from the battery, and McGee didn't have the least idea whether or not he'd been successful in getting out his cry for help. Exhausted, hurting, and feverish, he put his head down on the table next to the laptop. A short rest, and then he'd turn to seeing if there was anything else in this cabin that he could use.

McGee never realized when he slipped to the floor, unconscious.

Gibbs hooked his hands underneath DiNozzo's arms, gently lifting one end of the injured man onto the stretcher while another of the Marines lifted the other. Not gentle enough; the groan was stifled into an agonized hiss. Dammit, couldn't the man even slip into unconsciousness to escape? "Ducky, give him some more morphine."

"It's…okay…" DiNozzo gasped, trying to catch his breath, trying to relax onto the canvas stretched between the two poles.

Ducky shook his head. "Not advisable, Jethro. I've already given him as much as I dare under the circumstances. Give it time to work."

It was the best they could do. Gibbs didn't have to like it but he did have to accept it. "Go with him," he ordered.

Again, Dr. Mallard disagreed. "Petty Officer Mason is a fine medic; Mr. DiNozzo will be better off in his care while transported to the Trauma Unit. There are others here that I must see to."

Others that would rather slit his medical examiner's throat than be treated by him. Gibbs didn't need to tell Ducky that; his friend of long-standing was well aware of the situation and wasn't about to be denied adherence to his Hippocratic oath despite the danger.

Nothing he could do about that, either, but he could make sure that another of his team didn't fall victim to these bastards that had turned DiNozzo into spaghetti sauce, heavy on the tomato paste. "You, you, and you," he pointed to three of the biggest Marines. "I want you at Dr. Mallard's side. Any one of those bastards gets to him, you'll answer to me. Understand?"

Gibbs wasn't in their chain of command, but each of the three understood where the NCIS team leader was coming from and where he had been. "Yes, sir," one answered for all of them. "Don't worry about your doc. You just go after your other man."

Shepard motioned to him from across the clearing, Ziva by her side. "Gibbs," she called impatiently, "are you coming?"

"Be right there." Gibbs took a moment to squeeze DiNozzo's shoulder. "Don't give them a hard time, DiNozzo," he said softly.

DiNozzo managed a drooping smile, his pupils already wide and dark. "Right, boss." The words were now slurring.

Ducky had been right; the morphine was kicking in. Gibbs watched as the pair of Marines lifted the stretcher with his subordinate, moving toward where the chopper was hovering. The second chopper was already moving in a standard search pattern, the pilot and co-pilot scanning the area and trying to see through the heavy forestry to locate both McGee and any of the terrorists who had escaped when the Marines made their entrance.

"Now, Jethro. Unless you want a ride back yourself." Shepard was tired of waiting. There was another agent out there, one with valuable intel, and time was wasting.

Gibbs got himself over there, setting out with Director Shepard and Officer David. He dropped into an easy jog that would nonetheless eat up the miles in no time, the others having no difficulty keeping up with him. "You said that DiNozzo didn't get through to Ducky, Jenny. How did you know to get out here?"

"You've made a lot of friends in a short period of time, Jethro." Jogging didn't impede Director Shepard's ability to converse one bit. "It started with a ham radio operator in Starksville named Dennis something-or-other. Claimed to be on the local police force, and that the storm had taken down both the landlines and prevented cell service. Sound familiar?"

"Know the man." Gibbs made a mental note to himself to get back to Starksville and stand a round of beer for the entire force. "They send you up this way?"

"It took a while for him to get through to me," Shepard admitted. "At first, it sounded like some sort of a hoax. Then I was able to get some details, things such as getting shot at and picking up some sort of important intelligence. This Dennis person didn't know what the intel was, just that it had you upset and that you were a bat out of hell getting out of there. He said that you got shoved into water, was worried that you had drowned." She tossed Gibbs a look filled with meaning. "I thought it sounded like a mess that you'd get into."

"Shoved into the water, yes. Drowned: not quite." Gibbs ignored the pointed comment and picked up the pace, everyone keeping up with him. "At least, not three of us. I still don't know where McGee is. Ziva and I found some traces of him downstream, the way we're headed. I don't know if he's alive," he had to admit, ignoring what it cost him to say that.

"We think he is," Shepard told him. "As I said: DiNozzo didn't get through. Right after your friend from Starksville contacted me, I called for back up. The roads to this area have all been washed out, and our people called the Army Corp of Engineers to help get a bridge or two up fast. At the time when the Starksville man contacted us, the storm was still in full swing. I wasn't going to be able to put a chopper in the air."

"And—?" Gibbs prompted. It sounded like there was more.

There was. "Abby called me, frantic. It wasn't signed, but she thought the message sounded like McGee, only it wasn't encrypted and it wasn't from his usual email address."

"What did it say?"

"Help. Cabin," Shepard repeated. "Just those two words. They mean anything to you?"

"Yeah," Gibbs grunted, "but they're not all that useful. There are dozens of small cabins in these woods, places for guys to get away for a weekend of beer. Nothing else? Couldn't Abby trace it back, like McGee does?"

"She's working on it," Shepard said. "She's narrowed the servers down to West Virginia."

"That's a start." Gibbs couldn't help the sarcasm.

"We're working under a lot of impossible conditions, Jethro," Shepard reproved. "Landlines are still out and cell service is spotty in these mountains. We wouldn't have radio contact with D.C. if we didn't have the chopper above us to relay messages. She'll call us with anything. She was frantic, Jethro," Shepard repeated.

Yeah. Gibbs could imagine. His forensics specialist had a soft spot in her heart for the computer geek, and she would be racing back and forth trying to track down where the email had come from, begging her tech toys for more speed.

That was at the root of the problem: where had the email come from? How had McGee been able to get online? Why wasn't he still online, sending out more messages?

Too many questions, not enough answers. Gibbs shook forth another effort, leading the group to the last place where he and Ziva had spotted evidence of their resident geek.

It didn't take them long to retrace their steps. Gibbs stopped for a moment to regain the trail. The spot where they'd found the scrap of white cloth was still there, the water level receding to show more roots dipping into the water. One of the bushes showed signs of something or someone passing by; several small branches were bent or broken, a few green leaves having fallen to stand out on the dark brown dirt below.

There was something more. Gibbs pointed out the new footprints. "The escapees," he determined. "They were here; they found the same thing that we did." He stared off downstream. "They're about five minutes ahead of us."

"Which means that we shall have to make up the time," Ziva said as calmly as if she was proposing a trip to the local history museum. She checked that her newly acquired handgun was secure in its holster. "Let's be off."

McGee slowly came to himself, the pain in his side refusing to let him rest.

Crap. He was on the floor, and the floor was not only rough but dirty. He sneezed. Flame washed through him, agonized and torn muscles screaming and refusing to let anything so mundane as breathing take place again until a long period of punishment had been completed.

Note to self: no more sneezing.

That was going to be difficult, since the dust was tickling his nose, and McGee suspected that trying to rise from this spot on the floor was going to be something of a challenge. He'd seen wet dish rags with more energy than he currently possessed. He concentrated on passing air through his lips, encouraging the rest of him to become more than adequately oxygenated in case he should need to move again.

Achoo.

Shit!

He curled up into himself, willing the knifing pain to ease itself away more quickly, leaving him trembling with sweat pouring off of him.

The trembling kept going, and McGee cursed again under his breath. Fever! Hadn't he warned himself? No wonder he felt hot and cold at the same time.

Well, he could either lie here on the floor surrounded by dust and glass shards, sneezing periodically with its attendant pain, or he could summon what little strength he had to get himself out of this mess, since there didn't seem to be any point in counting on the rest of his team. He hadn't seen Gibbs or Ziva or Tony since last night when Tony jumped the sedan, and there wasn't anything to suggest that they had survived the crash.

More than that: he was an NCIS agent, sworn to his country, and he was in possession of intelligence that could possibly save thousands of lives. He had a responsibility to get that intelligence to his superiors, which meant that lying here on the floor was not an option. McGee started to push himself up with his hands.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor had clearly been transported to a spot just under his ribs, for an explosion mushroomed into his side once again.

Lying on the floor suddenly became a much more attractive option. In fact, it became the only option for the next few minutes.

Okay, new plan: lie here for a while until some of his strength came back. McGee didn't have to sneeze. Not really. He could pull some of his wet shirt up over his nose so that the dust wouldn't get to him. He could do that. He could. He could lie here, trying to pretend that he was comfortable, until he was stronger and then he could get up and go for help. He could do that.

McGee told himself that over and over, worked it through his fever-addled wits until he believed it would happen, and settled himself to wait until the proper moment.

He waited until voices came in through the broken window, voices that McGee didn't recognize. Voices that had an accent, almost but not quite British or American. Voices that broke down the door with a clatter that hurt his ear drums along with the rest of him.

"Haksim! Look what we have found!"

They were making good time, Gibbs on one side of the creek and Ziva on the other, the Marines and Director Shepard trailing them, the pair scanning for signs that McGee's body had washed up somewhere downstream. Ziva had the advantage: the footprints that all were convinced belonged to the remnants of the terrorist cell were on her side of the water, and she was using them to increase her pace. Her team was several yards ahead of Gibbs.

The radio squawked, and the Marine carrying it hastened to complete the connection. He handed the box to Gibbs.

"Gibbs."

"Gibbs! You're alive! It's Abby, back at NCIS Headquarters."

"I know where you are, Abby." There wasn't time for this. They were in hot pursuit. Gibbs tried to keep his temper under control. "What have you got?"

"I tracked the email back to the computer of origin. You know, every computer has a unique address, represented by a series of numbers. Once I was able to figure out what that was, I contacted the main IPs in the area to find out who owned that computer—"

"Cut to the chase, Abbs. Working against the clock."

"Right. Take this down, Gibbs. The guy said that he accidentally left his laptop in his weekend cabin."

"Where is it, Abby?"

"Somewhere off of Route 16, Gibbs. But, Gibbs, you can't get there. The roads are washed out."

"Where off of Route 16, Abby?" I'll get there, passed through both air and airwaves, come hell or high water, both of which have already occurred.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Gibbs. Take these numbers down." Abby recited several sets of numbers.

Gibbs understood immediately. "Latitude and longitude."

"Have the chopper guys spot it from the air, and guide you to it," Abby directed. "And, Gibbs?"

"Yes, Abby?" No more time. Gibbs allowed impatience to float through the air waves.

"Bring him home safe."

"I will, Abby." Gibbs shut down the contact.

In a daze, McGee felt them search his pockets for ID, felt them drag his badge out of his pocket and examine it.

"This is the one. The fourth."

"Question him. Did they find the data stick?"

In a blackening haze, he felt them grab the remnants of his jacket and hoist him up into the air.

Hah. Beat you. Passing out before I can say anything…

Gibbs pulled up short. There it was: the cabin that Abby had pinpointed. The chopper was high up in the sky, too high for the sound of the blades to be anything more than the buzzing of bees going after honey.

Gibbs had left the river bank some half a mile back, guided by the pilot who had spotted the cabin. It was a tiny log building, possibly two rooms if someone had bothered putting in an interior wall, with a chimney along one side. Trees overhung the entire place, dropping piles of rotting brown leaves onto the roof to cascade onto the ground surrounding the place. Tacky green curtains closed off the view inside through the front window. It looked deserted, the pilot had reported. No sign of anyone outside of the cabin, no smoke rising from the chimney.

Gibbs knew better. The footprints had stopped on Ziva's side of the water and had picked up on his. The footprints had pointed in the direction of this cabin.

The time for caution was over. He didn't care that Jenny Shepard was his boss and technically in charge of this rescue mission; Gibbs was giving the orders. Silent hand signals went out to the Marines: no one would escape. The Marines spread out, looking to encircle the cabin and establish a perimeter. Not good enough; Gibbs wanted someone stationed directly at the back door. Ziva?

"They won't get past me," she promised in a whisper, and slipped away into the trees.

Shepard gestured: on your mark, Jethro.

Gibbs went in.

"Nothing," one voice reported. "He does not have the data stick on him." McGee felt the hands finish frisking him, didn't find anything in his pockets beyond his ID and his wallet and a bit of loose change. They dropped him back into an over-stuffed chair, one spring digging into his back. One of them kept the loose change.

Movement was out of the question. He didn't have it in him, despite the discomfort of the untethered spring in the chair cushion. That little ache was nothing compared to the inferno that his side had become.

A blessing in disguise, that injury. The terrorists—there was no doubt that that was who they were—couldn't question him. McGee was grateful to pass out every time they touched him. He could keep this up until he died.

"Kill him," the voice ordered. "We take no chances."

McGee heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

Seemed like dying was going to come a little sooner than McGee had anticipated…

Kick down the door. See the bastard aiming a gun at McGee, see the shock on the bastard's face at Gibbs's entrance. Gibbs didn't let him recover from his shock. Gibbs shot him where he stood: a chest shot. A kill shot to the heart; the man dropped, instantly dead.

There were three more, all standing around the chair that held the computer geek. Each one of them knew the stakes. Each one of them knew that they couldn't let the computer geek live, not if their cause was to survive with its leader undetected. Each one of them pulled out another weapon and aimed.

Gibbs shot one.

Shepard, at his elbow, did for another.

The Marines finished the third. Blood poured onto the floor from three different directions.

Not enough. Bullets came flying out from the back room—another enemy combatant!

"McGee!" Gibbs yelled, knowing that the man was unconscious. He leaped, taking McGee out of the chair and down to the floor for whatever meager safety it could offer. His shoulder rolled against the stout wooden planks, McGee a limp bundle in his arms, protecting the man and his intel with Gibbs's own body. Guns roared, and Gibbs couldn't tell who was firing. He tried to haul McGee and himself behind the dubious cover provided by the over-stuffed chair.

Another shot from the back room, a singleton, the bullet going wild, then a surprised gurgle. A shocked body tottered out into view, blood bubbling from his lips, and collapsed.

"Hold your fire!" Shepard bawled.

Gibbs looked up. Ziva appeared from the back room, blood on her knife. She stared at Gibbs on the ground, McGee flopped beside him. She ignored the body she had just dispatched. "Is he…?" she breathed.

"Not yet," Gibbs said grimly. "Get on the radio. Get Ducky here now."

Shepard moved in, relieved Gibbs of his gun. "For you, too, Jethro," she said gently.

Which was when Gibbs realized that the stinging in his shoulder wasn't just a splinter from the roughly hewn wood floors.

There was more than enough blood in the cabin, Gibbs thought dourly, and too much of it was lying on the floor and on the furniture. That blood ought to be inside the various bodies.

Six dead terrorists. Gibbs couldn't find it within himself to be sorry; those six had been about to kill McGee. A shiver of cold ran through him—just a few seconds later, and the picture of the Hormuz Hacksaw would have been lost along with a damn fine NCIS agent.

Still could happen. McGee had only briefly surfaced to consciousness, enough to realize that he was alive and surrounded by friends, and then succumbed to his own personal darkness. Ducky, summoned from the glade where he'd treated DiNozzo, had taken one look at his new patient and slapped on a heavy dressing to prevent any more blood loss. A field bag of intravenous fluids came next, a large bore needle allowing access to hypovolemic blood vessels. Ducky slipped the bag under McGee's head, using the weight of the skull rather than gravity to push in the life-saving liquid.

"There isn't much I can do for him, Jethro," Ducky reported, letting his querulous tone indicate his worry, "not here in the forest. The man needs immediate surgery and intravenous antibiotics to survive." He finished injecting McGee with something in a large syringe, and fixed his friend with a stern eye. "Jethro, sit down! And stop hovering," he added. "You'll do no one any good if you topple over onto your face, and I'm not in the mood to try to pick you up. You weigh substantially more than I do," he complained.

"Ducky—"

Jenny Shepard moved in to back up the medical examiner. "Sit down, Jethro," she ordered. "That chair. Now." She pointed.

"Jenny—"

"Now, Jethro. You're going into shock," Shepard said. "Listen to your director, if you're not going to listen to your doctor." She turned, her attention caught by Ziva, directing the Marines.

"Bring that stretcher inside," Ziva told them, using hand gestures to emphasize her words. "Our man goes out first, ahead of any of the dead bodies," she insisted, although no one was arguing.

Ducky took over. "You there, take his head. You at the feet, and the rest of you gather 'round. On the count of three: one, two, three." With so many hands, McGee's unconscious body was gently deposited onto the wire frame stretcher and strapped in, the Marines toting him outside where he could be lifted on cables to the hovering helicopter and flown to immediate help.

Ducky turned to Gibbs. "Your turn, Jethro."

Gibbs tried to object. "The crime scene—" He stopped, feeling suddenly woozy. He grabbed for something to steady himself, almost missing the chair back that would offer meager support. He blinked, trying to get the room to stop spinning. "Ducky?"

Ducky smiled victoriously. "Hah. I wondered when the morphine I gave you would kick in. I gave you enough to sedate a grizzly bear." He gestured to a couple more Marines that were floating nearby. "I believe Special Agent Gibbs is now ready for transport, gentlemen. You may strap him in without fear for the consequences."

The last thing that Jethro Gibbs remembered was getting himself lifted up into the same chopper as McGee, complaining all the way with no one listening to his objections. The steady whirring of the chopper blades mingled in with the throbbing in his shoulder until he passed out entirely.