McGee had already located three listening devices: one was under the table in the small kitchenette, and the other two located behind the computers. Those were interesting; they were posing as flash drives, plugged into ports, and only hard core computer geeks would have questioned their real purpose.
McGee knew better, and he also knew better than to try to remove any of them. He wasn't about to say that there weren't more than just the three, but he would lay odds that tampering with any device would bring someone running to check on the in-house resident code-breakers.
Those computer bugs looked more than interesting, and the geek within McGee longed to examine them. He couldn't say for certain, but he wouldn't be surprised to learn that their design included the ability to scan the work that McGee and Eppes had been doing. Heck, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that those little critters activated the webcam located on the top of the screen to watch what the resident geniuses were doing. McGee had thought that he'd caught an occasional glimpse of a light gleaming through the damn thing. If he hadn't known it before, he knew it now: there was a lot of money invested in this caper, enough to afford these high end toys.
He'd already pointed them out to Professor Eppes, not certain that the man would recognize the significance. Eppes's eyes had widened and his lips tightened, but that was all: message received and understood. Anything and everything that went on in this suite of rooms had the potential to be overheard.
It was amazing what could be communicated by the small tap of a finger. Eppes had started it, had touched McGee's wrist when discussing Baranski's Assymptotes, just enough to let McGee know that Eppes was trying to throw their captors off. McGee hadn't the faintest idea what Baranski's Assymptotes were, but he threw in a few comments about plugging the theorem into a multi-variate analysis on his laptop and hoped it would be enough. McGee had even made it look good, setting up a spreadsheet that practically waggled its macros every time he entered a new value but otherwise made no sense whatsoever.
Eppes moved to a place between the laptops that they had been given, a spot where neither webcam could see. He shifted haunted eyes to the door to their suite—locked, from the outside—and then to the windows. The message was clear: we have to escape.
McGee could read between the lines, too: Eppes's increasing discomfort meant that he was coming closer and closer to the answer, to the clear and unambiguous reading of the code. Professor Eppes wasn't going to be able to pull off the deception much longer.
It was time to leave, one way or another.
McGee cast one last forlorn look at the windows that led to the grassy expanse outside. Two drawbacks there: too small for McGee, and they'd make too much noise breaking the glass. Ms. Marple's hirelings would be on them in an instant.
No, it would have to be the door. There McGee had an advantage, albeit a slender one. The door to the stairs ascending to the first floor of the mansion was locked—but not to the same high end expectations as the little computer bugs. This door still carried the same click lock from half a century ago, the type of lock that eight years olds engaged when barricading themselves in the bathroom in a vain attempt to avoid going to school. Well, maybe not quite that bad, McGee told himself, but still not the style of lock that he was used to seeing around military installations. McGee never considered himself particularly good with non-computer security, but this particular lock would shudder at the sight of a hair clip.
McGee didn't have a hair clip, but he did have the slender tine of a fork. And he wasn't Professor Marshall Penfield, he was Special Agent Timothy McGee with a little more than street level knowledge of nefarious activities.
Click.
Open.
McGee let out the breath that he didn't realize that he'd been holding, felt a puff of air across his cheek and knew that Eppes had released the same sort of breath. They listened, stock-still, wondering if their activities had yet been discovered.
Not a sound. Not a whisper, no thunder of heavy feet to say that some unknown alarm had been tripped. For all the tech toys that Ms. Marple engaged, they were all useless unless someone was monitoring them. McGee led the way up the stairs, wincing every time one of the old boards creaked.
Still nothing. McGee, in the lead, paused and listened again. He could hear the clink of someone handling dishes. The swoosh of a faucet being turned on pushed in briefly, then off again. Meals, then; someone was preparing food. That meant that he and Eppes didn't have much time: someone would be bringing them their next meal, and would undoubtedly raise the alarm when they found that the two resident geniuses—one real, and one fake—were missing.
The tinkling of dishware grew louder; the kitchen was up ahead and there was no door to shield them from view. McGee swiftly reviewed their options: poor, poorer, and worst. Going back wasn't going to help. Going up another flight of stairs wouldn't get them any closer to outside and freedom, and had the added risk of running into someone that they didn't particularly want to see.
That left slipping by the open entrance to the kitchen. No time like the present: McGee took a deep breath, and, watching that the man's back was turned and his attention on something mouth-watering, darted past the opening.
Past! McGee hugged the wall, listening frantically. Had he been noticed? Had the slightest bit of a shadow alerted the man in the kitchen that the captives were changing their status?
No. The clattering of dishes didn't change. Another plate clinked against something equally as hard with no break in the rhythm to suggest anything amiss. McGee gestured to Professor Eppes.
Eppes peered in, edging just over the rim of the door frame to locate the position of the kitchen worker. He hesitated, then slipped forward to join McGee.
Safe—for the moment. There was no change in the sounds emanating from the kitchen, and McGee drew Professor Eppes forward, heading for the front door.
No picklock needed here; front doors were designed to be easily opened from the inside. McGee had a bad moment when the lock snapped loudly, but the Great Outdoors beckoned equally as loud. He pulled Eppes out behind him, casting swiftly about to orient himself.
It was a suburban, almost rural, neighborhood, the street lined with tall trees which had likely been saplings at the time of the Civil War some hundred and fifty years ago. It was also a neighborhood that believed that good fences made for good neighbors; each mansion rose up from behind tall gates, some stone and some made of mere wooden planks carved ornately to prove that they too cost money.
Better than nothing. McGee would have preferred that the front door dump them out onto a busy street with a traffic patrol officer directing traffic, complete with a radio straight into some place official. Calling for help at the moment sounded pretty attractive, especially considering what knowledge lay inside Professor Eppes's head. "C'mon," he urged, seizing Eppes by the sleeve, pulling him forward. "We need to get out of here."
Eppes needed no further invitation. With a speed that surprised McGee, Eppes broke out into a swift jog that McGee himself had trouble keeping up with.
McGee's hopes began to rise. Could it really be this easy? Could they really break out of their ever so comfortable prison, escape to the nearest street corner and flag down a cop? McGee didn't dare try to turn into one of the mansions; there was too great a chance that the place would be empty with no one to let them in to use a phone. No, better to keep on running until they met up with some beat cop who would enjoy the reflected glory of restoring the NSA genius consultant to the clutches of his agency. McGee would live with the inevitable remarks by DiNozzo about needing to be rescued by one of the local's men in blue.
No, of course not. Easy was never easy. McGee's keen ear heard a shout behind them; their absence had been discovered. "Run!" McGee gasped out, moving from a fast jog to a flat out run.
Eppes didn't need another invitation. He stretched his legs, eyes wide with fear, and began to pull away from McGee.
Yes! Yes! As much as McGee valued his own hide, it was more important that Professor Eppes escape. Now, how to make that happen? Should McGee drop back, delay the pursuit so that Eppes could surge ahead? McGee chanced a glance over his shoulder, saw that none of their captors had invested much time in sprinting practice. All of the pursuers were dropping back, tongues hanging out and losing ground.
"Go! Go!" McGee yelled at Eppes, trying to extend his own long legs to keep up with the shorter man. Wouldn't DiNozzo give him a hard time for being out-run by a squirt of a college academic? McGee resolved to insist that he was covering Eppes's back—assuming that they got out of this alive.
It looked like they would.
Until something whizzed almost silently by his ear: bullets!
Smug victory was instantly replaced by cold hard fear in his gut. "Go!" he yelled again, his voice this time rimmed with terror. Eppes recognized the danger and sped up, pulling away from McGee yet again.
Then McGee was on the ground, rolling onto the tarmac, his shoulder on fire as stones bit into skin protected only by flimsy cotton cloth. He reached to protect the injury, to grab it to stop the pain—when suddenly the real injury made itself known. It wasn't his shoulder. It was his leg. Fire flashed through his thigh, a delayed reaction to the projectile which had brought him down like a duck shot out of the sky.
Running? Not going to happen. Even walking was so out of the question. McGee grabbed onto his leg just above the blood, hoping that breathing wouldn't be required for the next few minutes and that the agony shooting up and down would go away soon! There wasn't any room in his brain for anything except the torrent of volcanic fury emanating from just above his knee.
Then Professor Eppes was at his side. "C'mon!" he urged frantically. "Get up!"
No! Eppes had come back for him! McGee tried to get his wits and his mouth to cooperate. "Go!" he croaked. "Escape!"
"Not without you. C'mon!"
"Go!" McGee insisted, wishing he could put forth some erudite theory that this genius would understand. "Go!"
Too late. Two guns pushed down between them, gun barrels blue and deadly in appearance.
"Of course I have something for you, Gibbs," Abby said, turning to her bench of machines. "You're here, are you? Do you ever show up when I don't have anything for you?"
Goth-Girl was in full swing. A little subdued compared to earlier, but Don was willing to put that down to worry over the missing NCIS man. The mascara was smudged, suggesting that she'd been crying.
Don hoped that this wouldn't take long. This was D.C., but it was also NCIS, not the best funded of the investigative departments. There were two things that needed to happen: speed, and results. If neither of those appeared, then Don was going to confiscate the evidence and turn it over to someone with a little more on the ball; namely, his own well-funded department with its headquarters in this town. Well…better funded. Nobody these days laid claim to good funding.
"So, what do you have?" Don asked, trying to keep his impatience under control.
"A lot, Mr. FBI Man," she replied. She jerked her thumb at the screen over the bench. "First of all: fingerprints. No go. Dead end. We got a bunch of them from the hotel room where we lost McGee and your guy. Most we could eliminate, 'cause they belonged to the guests who were there, who were supposed to be there. I can confirm that McGee was there; his prints were on one of the glasses. There were a number that we couldn't confirm."
"You ran those prints?"
"I ran the prints," Abby nodded, "and most came back as locals without any kind of record or suspicious activities. The likelihood is that they're all living in this area and happened to be in the hotel sometime during the past little while, just long enough to let their fingerprints be on stuff in the room. You can check 'em out, Gibbs, but I wouldn't put any faith in them. They could belong to a lot of uninvolved people."
"And—?" Gibbs prompted.
Abby never missed a beat. "The upstairs room was cleaned. The only prints I could find belonged to McGee and Professor Eppes and two of the housekeeping staff. Again, not a surprise. If I were the kidnappers, I'd wear gloves, too. But now we come to the good part, Gibbs." She indicated one more machine. "Tony brought me the crushed ampule from that room, the one with a trace of liquid still in it."
"Right."
"I identified the liquid. It's propofol."
Don blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Propofol," Abby repeated. "It's an anesthetic agent, commonly used in ICUs and operating rooms across the country. I checked it out with Ducky; it's pretty good for taking people down quick and up just as quick. That's why doctors like it. It gives them good control over a bad situation."
Gibbs was ready with the next thought. "That means that someone had access to a hospital."
"More," Don added. "It had to be someone with some medical knowledge. There aren't that many people who know what this propo- stuff is, let alone how to use it."
"How to use it safely," Gibbs nodded, already on the same path. "That should narrow down the suspects."
Don beat him to it. "Those fingerprints that you found and matched to the locals; any doctors? Nurses?"
"Plenty of doctors, but they're all Ph.D's," Abby reported. "This was a get together for academics, Mr. FBI Guy. Super intelligent types. Doctorates in math, physics, stuff like that."
"But people who are accustomed to researching things," Don argued, "people who routinely take a problem, researching the information surrounding the issue—"
"—and then solving it with technology," Gibbs finished for him. "Abby, give me that list of people that you matched against the fingerprints."
"Gibbs, it's not complete—"
"Give me the rest," Don interrupted. Goth-Girl had done some nice work; it was time to use some of his own. "I'll put FBI resources onto it, Gibbs. Let's see if some of the FBI data bases are more complete."
"Got it, boss," DiNozzo announced, holding up his hand.
Sinclair was on his tail. "The letter that we got from Santos, Don; it's from Diego Escobar, a South American drug lord."
"Looks like he's branching out into world politics, boss—"
"The word is out on the street: Escobar is looking to purchase some heavy duty deciphering skills, no questions asked. That puts him right in line with what's going down—"
"I have queried my international contacts," Ziva announced, breaking into the back and forth discussion. "Leonard Kwitarunge is no longer in Greece. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is suspected to be somewhere in either Europe or North America."
"Find him, Ziva—"
"He has been on the move for only the past twenty-four hours—"
"Right in line with what's going down right now—"
"Hey, guys?" That was Colby.
They ignored him.
"I've got an unsubstantiated report that Kwitarunge was seen passing through Norway, through Oslo—"
"Nah. MI-5 puts him in Spain, says their best intel has him traveling to Canada in the next twenty-four hours—"
"Got a match on suspect that Ziva and Granger lost to a bullet. His name's Kirby—"
"Yo! Guys!" Colby let out a piercing whistle.
The group rounded on him, stopped dead in their tracks.
"What?" Gibbs demanded.
"The group in the hotel. The bunch that got together with Charlie and Penfield—I mean, Penfield wasn't there—"
"The point, Colby." Don moved in.
"They're all doctors. Ph.D.'s, I mean."
"And—?"
"They're also all mathematicians, physicists, engineers—all in the really hard sciences. All except for this woman: Dr. Helen Michaelson Levinger. And, Don, she was a last minute add on for Charlie's post-lecture get-together." At their look of incomprehension, Colby pushed on. "Guys, this Dr. Levinger is a pharmacist. Her doctorate is in pharmacology; a Pharm.D. What was she doing at a lecture in pure math research?"
Silence. Each agent on each team contemplated the answer to that question and came up with very few options.
Not for long.
"DiNozzo. Get me an address."
"On it, boss."
"David, I want a better picture of this woman," Don announced grimly. "Get hold of Professor Penfield. See if he's ever heard of this Dr. Levinger. See if the woman has a legitimate reason for being at that lecture."
"You'll have it, Don," David promised, picking up the phone and dialing.
What am I supposed to do now? This had gone way beyond serious, and way beyond what any self-respecting professor of mathematics ought to expect from life. Helping Don with some of his cases was fun—who wouldn't relish the opportunity to demonstrate yet again the value of having a decent set of numbers to have at your back?
This was not 'helping out' a government agency. This was smack dab in the middle of the whole fiasco, and the sole positive on either side of the equation was that he didn't have Marshall Penfield at his side and he did have this guy McGee from NCIS. Despite his disclaimers of ineptitude and the seriousness of the situation, Charlie had been impressed with McGee's skill with a computer. The man would have made a fine addition to some university's academic roster if he'd pursued the Ph.D. and gone into research. He still could—if we ever get out of this mess.
Instead, the tall man was lying on a sofa in their basement 'suite', leaking blood into the cushions. The sofa would have to be thrown out, Charlie thought wildly, knowing that it was a completely irrational idea to be occupying his brain. He couldn't help it; it was hard to regain his line of attack for the cipher.
Actually, it wasn't so hard. In fact, it was downright easy to plunge back into the numbers and escape from the reality of the situation. That way lay madness; Charlie was well aware of that. He had been down that road with PvNP. No, the real reason that Charlie had enough megabytes of brainpower left to worry about his new partner in crime was that the cipher had been solved. Charlie already knew what most of it said, and was only cleaning up the small details such as 'north' vs 'south' for the location of where someone was expecting to bring in a large shipment of biologicals. One of those details was exactly what the bio-agent was, whether it was anthrax or ebola or some other lethal concoction of viruses better left alone. The package wouldn't be particularly large, and that would make it all the more difficult to find among the millions of crates arriving through the U.S. borders every day. He had to get this information to his brother, Don.
Charlie looked at the man on the sofa, noting uneasily that McGee's face was white and beaded with sweat. "Are you all right?"
Penfield-McGee managed a weak smile. "Not really." He shifted uncomfortably, trying to keep the expression of agony from reaching his face and failing miserably. "We have to get you away from here."
"Not without you," Charlie told him. "If they find out—"
"They'll eventually find out anyway," McGee cut him off. "It's only a matter of time, professor." He took a deep breath. "You need to escape." He glanced at the door to the 'suite' with a pointed expression, and kept his voice down. "They've stationed someone outside of the door, and I doubt that they'll let that lapse. The only way out is through that window." He pointed at the small panel of glass that looked up at the badly manicured lawn of green. "You need to go. Now."
"Yes, but—"
"No buts," McGee said firmly. He bit his lip, Charlie noticed, wondering just how bad the injury was. Their kidnappers had put a white bandage on it, but red had already leaked through and onto the sofa. Pain-killers hadn't been offered. "This is national security, Professor Eppes. We have to get you out of here before you finish deciphering the code."
No use in sharing that he'd cracked it, that only a few details remained for clarification. Charlie swallowed hard, searching the math for something that would allow him to argue with the NCIS agent, something that would permit him to demand that McGee accompany him. "I—"
The door opened. It wasn't loud, but it was unexpected and it shocked him as much as if he'd been able to provide a conclusive mathematical proof for Unified Field Theory.
Ms. Marple entered, followed by three of her people, all looming over her and looking decidedly annoyed.
It wasn't Charlie that they aimed for; it was 'Professor Penfield.'
Ms. Marple wasted no time. "Who are you?"
Charlie stood up in alarm. "He's Marsha—"
Ms. Marple held up her hand imperiously, not bothering to look at Charlie. She continued to glare at McGee. "Who. Are. You?"
No point in trying to hide. Clearly Charlie's new partner understood that. He managed a viciously victorious smile, crooked with pain though it was. "Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS."
One of Ms. Marple's henchmen looked at the other. "NCIS? What the hell agency is that?"
Some of the victory seeped away. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service," McGee offered grimly.
"Navy's got its own KP squad?"
Ms. Marple didn't bother to respond, and neither did McGee. Instead, she looked coldly at Charlie. "Have you completed the task?"
"No." It wasn't a lie. There were still some small pieces left.
"Think very carefully about your answer, Professor Eppes. This man's life depends on it." She indicated the NCIS agent lying helplessly on the sofa.
Charlie lifted his chin. It wasn't a lie. "No. The task is not completed."
Charlie had never heard a man scream before, not in agony. He had heard Larry Fleinhardt scream in rage when an experiment failed to live up to its purported theory, had heard the occasional student screech in dismay over an exam, but never had he heard a man scream in pain. The nonsense that television and movies offered paled in comparison. This was true agony, the sound ripped from the throat of a man who didn't want to give it up.
"Stop! Stop it!"
The henchman eased up, removing his heavy hand from McGee's knee. Blood seeped more redly from the bandage, and McGee gasped, trying to inhale relief with the oxygen.
Charlie staggered, feeling sick at witnessing the scene. Ms. Marple shoved him onto the chair in front of a computer—it was McGee's, not Charlie's—and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up at her. "The next time you lie," she hissed, "I will have them put a bullet through his other knee."
Charlie's tongue was thick. "Didn't… lie…" No, he couldn't throw up, not now, not in front of—
Ms. Marple shoved him from the chair, and his belly heaved. He couldn't help it; whatever had been left in his stomach erupted with a heavy helping of acid to burn his throat. He barely heard her next words.
"You have two hours, Professor Eppes, at which time I will begin to torture this NCIS agent until I get what I need. Two hours!"