A second form cut through the water, and powerful arms propelled the man forward. Gibbs, Don realized. As good as Don was, Gibbs was better, and Don redoubled his efforts to keep up.

That was Charlie in front of them, and a body that wasn't moving. How long had it been? There was no way of knowing, no way short of an autopsy and Don Eppes wasn't about to let that happen. Not now. Charlie was too young to die. Charlie was too smart to die. The old 'genius dying young' scenario went out of favor generations ago. Geniuses were now supposed to live into their eighties, dispensing wisdom along the way.

If he wasn't in the water with his mouth closed, Don would have been babbling. He recognized the symptoms, and something small inside of him said that he really ought to remove himself from this case, that he was too close to one of the major players.

Don told the little voice to shut up and wait for a more opportune time. He had a brother to rescue.

Gibbs reached Charlie first, and Don a mere instant later. The first touch terrified him: Charlie was cold. Cold, as in dead. Cold, as in life had been extinguished an hour ago, as though the faint smear of pink told of a bullet piercing some vital organ and death had been all but instantaneous.

That didn't matter to Gibbs. The NCIS man hauled the cold body around to get to the mouth, forcing air in and pausing only to let river water spew out. "Help me get him to the shore."

"He's not…?" Don couldn't finish the question.

"Not yet." Gibbs forced more air into Charlie's mouth. "Shore. Move!"

Don grabbed Charlie's arm—it still felt too cold for any life to be left—and pushed off toward the shore. A small eddy of current tried to pull all three of them back into the main stream, but Don fought it off, forcing the grouping closer to the embankment.

"Don! Over here!"

It was Sinclair, and Granger, and it was four more strong arms. The pair of FBI agents waded in, grabbing all three and dragging them onto land.

Granger took over from Gibbs, blowing air into Charlie's lungs, mud crawling up around the both of them.

"Is he…?"

Charlie coughed. It was the most wonderful sound that Don had ever heard.

Gibbs took over, refusing to slow down. "He's been shot," he told the other two. "The cold of the river probably kept him from bleeding out. He warms up, the bleeding's going to pick up." He glanced across the terrain. "We're a good two miles from the house. A long way."

Don got hold of himself. He forced his concern for his brother into the background, turned himself back into the calculating team leader of the premier squad of the Los Angeles force. "There's a vehicle back at the mansion, and the road is less than half a mile from this location." He rapidly assessed the men available. "Colby, go back and commandeer a vehicle. I don't care if it's evidence or if you have to hotwire it; if it runs, get it over here. Tell Fornell I need another chopper with a set of medics to meet us. And, Colby?"

"Don?"

"Tell Fornell that the man who can solve the code is who the chopper is for."

Gibbs slid his hands under Charlie's shoulders, ready to lift and help carry the unconscious man out of the forest. He chuckled grimly. "That'll get Fornell moving."

"Special Agent Eppes," Dr. Mallard growled, "you appear to be cut from the same cloth as Special Agent Gibbs. You appear to labor under the misapprehension that browbeating a hapless medical examiner as to the condition of a living victim in a hospital will result in an improved outcome. I assure you, dear fellow, that it will not. No amount of harassment will enable me to predict the outcome of surgery on your brother any sooner or with any greater accuracy than I already have." He re-seated himself on the hard plastic chair that was the only source of comfort in the surgical waiting area.

Don started to apologize. "Dr. Mallard—"

"Ducky," Gibbs cut in, a warning and long-suffering tone in his voice.

"Jethro, I am merely pointing out—"

"Ducky, the man's blowing off steam. Let 'im."

Don felt obliged to cut in, an oblique apology for his own behavior. "Gibbs, how's your man? McGee?"

That changed the tenor of the discussion. Gibbs's face darkened. "They can't get his fever down. Not yet," he added, as if it was only a matter of time and medical competence—and both time and competence could be bullied into cooperation as soon as Gibbs set his mind to it. "The bullet went through his leg, so they just had to clean it out and patch him up."

Don recognized the defense mechanism; Gibbs was as worried about his agent as Don was about Charlie, and Don didn't blame him in the slightest. Don would have been just as scared if David or Colby or Megan had been in the same position.

This was different. Charlie wasn't just one member of Don's team, he was his brother. This was the man that Don had grown up despising and teasing and loving. It was the man that he'd grown away from and then learned to love as a brother all over again. This wasn't an agent of the Federal government, sworn to put his life on the line for the good of the country; this was a civilian, someone that they'd all sworn to serve and protect. This was a man who would change the world with his intellect—if he didn't die on the operating table.

There wasn't a damn thing that any one of them standing there could do about it.

David changed the subject, perhaps recognizing dangerous territory. "Anyone hear anything from Fornell about the crime scene?"

Gibbs had gotten better intel; from where, Don had no idea. "There was a pretty good fight between Fornell and the NSA," he informed them, trying for amusement and falling short.

"Who won?"

"To hear Fornell tell it, it was a draw," Gibbs said.

Don could translate as well as anyone there. "He lost. NSA took over. They find anything?"

"Nothing, which was why Fornell is calling it a draw. Nobody found the data stick they were looking for. They have a bunch of leads on people who were interested in the contents of the code. Most of those are getting turned over to the CIA; a lot of them are located overseas and out of FBI jurisdiction. The ones on American soil Fornell is keeping. The NSA has graciously allowed that it doesn't have the manpower to keep everyone under surveillance." The sarcasm dripped heavily.

"How about your Forensics?" David asked. "The laptop?"

Gibbs glowered. "Nothing yet."

Colby shook his head. "Man, your people may be good, but this was Charlie working on it. Charlie is one of the premier code guys in the world. You think your forensics people can hack it?"

"Tony!" Abby wailed. "Tony, there is no way that I am going to be able to get into this thing. Not even if I unscrew the back and offer it mint chocolate chip ice cream will I be able to pull any data from the hard drive." She glowered at the NCIS agent. "You do realize that when it comes to setting up codes, there's a reason why Professor Eppes is considered the best of the best of the best?"

"Yes, Abbs, I do." DiNozzo knew when to do his own groveling, and his came with a thirty two ounce glass of Caf-Pow. "But you are the best of the best of the best when it comes to Forensics, right? You can beat a little old laptop."

"I can beat it with a stick, Tony," she told him, "but I can't get into the data files. Maybe McGee. Why don't you ask him? Oh, wait," she added, the sarcasm flowing heavily to cover up the fear. "You can't. It's because you let him get kidnapped along with Professor Eppes."

"Not my fault," DiNozzo said promptly. "Did I tell him to make a cyber-date with a cop at some boring lecture? If he'd taken a real girl out on a real date, this never would have happened."

"This is McGee, Tony." Abby wasn't appeased. "You know he's a geek, and you tease him anyway."

"Abbs, McGee expects it." It was time to put this conversation to bed. "And he expects you to get into this thing, Abby. This is McGee; he worked on this machine along with Professor Eppes. What kind of password would McGee use if he didn't want them to find the answer but wanted us to be able to get to it?"

"Good question, Tony. I wish I had a good answer. I tried everything I could think of: your name. My name. Gibbs's name. I tried Ducky, Mallard, every variation on every waterfowl I could think of. Nothing," she said grimly. "Nothing is working. I have the decrypting programs running at full speed, trying to muscle it out, and they haven't come up with anything yet."

"I guess the best thing to do is to give them time to work—"

"I don't think so, Tony." Abby had moved beyond that. "Tony, we're talking something really really scary, here. If you're McGee, what do you do to protect it?"

"I encode it," DiNozzo replied promptly. "If I'm McGee, I know that I'm damn good with a computer and that nobody is likely to get into anything that I set up. Not for a while, at least."

"Right. But who are you paired up with?"

DiNozzo stared at her, the answer sinking in like a lead weight.

"Right. Only the world's most best-est and smartest-est mathematician in the world. Somebody who makes the average type geniuses at the NSA go, 'ooh, ahhh'. Now, who's going to set up a pass code to get into the answer to a cipher that has a very good possibility of destroying the Western Hemisphere?"

The lead weight hit rock bottom.

DiNozzo dragged out his cell. "Gibbs is going to kill me." He tried to hand the electronic marvel to the forensics scientist. "You talk to him, Abby."

Gibbs had long ago decided that there were three kinds of surgeons. A small minority were actually human, able to interact with average mortals and with a clear understanding that while they had certain skills, there were other areas of every day living that they had little to no control over and a bit of prayer that the two didn't conflict was a pretty good practice to live by. An equally small minority were arrogant bastards, hyper-intelligent and determined to let the world know it by contriving to control every aspect of life around them by whatever means seemed the most expedient at the time. They usually got away with outrageous behavior because when the chips were down, the arrogant bastards would come through.

The third type of surgeon, the majority that Gibbs had had the misfortune to meet, fell into neither category. Arrogant, sure, with a pair of brass ones to go with the arrogance, but without the outstanding intelligence that caused people to walk away, grumbling under their breath. No, this type of surgeon was the type that got laughed at behind his back while someone else cleaned up his mess and hoped that his patient didn't die.

This one fell into category two. Better have, was Gibbs's unvoiced thought. This is the guy that they have on call for when the president is in town. Gibbs recognized the type walking alongside the stretcher carrying Eppes's brother out of surgery, shouting orders as though the people with their hands actually on the stretcher couldn't hear him from two feet away.

Professor Eppes looked surprisingly peaceful and clean, despite the sheer whiteness of his face. From his brother's expression, though, Gibbs gathered that the man didn't look quite as good as Gibbs thought. Didn't phase Gibbs; he'd only seen the mathematician in pictures and then again while blowing air into his lungs. This looked pretty good compared to what Gibbs had dragged out of the river.

There was a hunk of bandages across the man's belly; again, not surprising. They'd probably had to do a fair amount of digging to find the bullet. That hunk of lead was already bagged and tagged and on its way to the FBI's lab; Fornell had intercepted it as one of the few pieces of evidence that he could get his hands on. Gibbs took a moment to feel for Fornell: the FBI senior agent had lost the crime scene to NSA and the code to NCIS. There wasn't much left for Fornell to grab. Besides, Gibbs consoled himself, they'd pulled the bullet out of an FBI consultant, not an NCIS consultant. Let Fornell have it, and figure out which of the guns they'd confiscated at Levenger's hideout was the one that did the deed. The whole bunch of suspects were on the chopping block for treason, and attempted murder wasn't going to make a whole hill of beans on top of that.

There was a mess of wires, too, each competing for space on Eppes and then leading to heavy boxes that went beep. Small guy, Gibbs realized again, with maybe not quite enough room for all of the wires. A couple hooked up to the portable EKG thing, not just one but two IVs—they having a sale on them today? Each line boasted a big bag of liquid whatever and another couple little ones for flavoring—and then there was the whole oxygen over the face contraption. Gibbs felt sorry for the man. That plastic over his face had to smell vile, and that was the least of the professor's worries. One wrong move, and a whole host of tubes would be shoved very quickly into places best left not described.

Gibbs felt even sorrier for his FBI counterpart. Don Eppes looked as though he wished that he was lying on the stretcher instead of his brother. Probably did, Gibbs admitted to himself. How often had Gibbs wished for the same thing, going all the way back to 'Nam when any of his boys got shot up? The two other FBI agents, Sinclair and Granger, were echoing the same look. Clearly the mathematician had earned his place on their team. The brother wasn't just hired help. He'd earned his place in the FBI just as much as Abby had hers in NCIS Forensics.

"It will be impossible to tell the outcome for the next twenty four hours," the surgeon intoned. There was a name embroidered on the white lab coat that the man had artfully thrown over his scrubs. Gibbs didn't bother squinting to make the letters come clear; it was unimportant. What was important was that the man lying on the stretcher wake up in time to tell them what the code said so that they could save the world, or at least a substantial hunk of it. The surgeon focused on Agent Eppes as the next of kin while the crowd of scrub-covered underlings shifted their target onto the narrow ICU bed. "The surgery was difficult and technically challenging—"

Trying to tell us how wonderful you are. Gibbs stifled a grunt.

"—and was made more difficult by the extensive submersion in water."

That cold water probably saved his life. Slowed his heart down so that he didn't pump all of his blood out through the bullet hole. Gave you a patient instead of a corpse.

"Septic shock and pneumonia are both very real possibilities."

You don't need to cover your butt, doc. Everyone here knows how bad off he is. Everyone here has lost good friends to enemy action.

"He should be waking up shortly. We will be keeping a close eye on him," the surgeon repeated before taking his leave, apparently dissatisfied with the level of awe his presence engendered in the crowd of Federal agents.

Sinclair grunted. "Like we expected the nurses to ignore him. They're even keeping track of how often he breathes." He pointed to one of the machines positioned high above Charlie's bed, a bright green dot rising and falling in time with the mathematician's chest.

Gibbs moved onto more important things. "I've got a couple of Marines downstairs, waiting to stand guard. I'll bring 'em up in a moment." He regarded the unconscious man in the bed, considering. "We need that code, Eppes."

"Yeah." Special Agent Eppes took a deep breath, leaning over the bed. The feelings that he radiated were clear: the words were national security, but Eppes wanted proof that his brother was going to be all right. "Charlie, can you hear me?"

If he did, the professor gave no sign.

Eppes tried again. "Charlie, it's Don. Talk to me, buddy."

This time there was a small shifting of muscles, followed by a whimper of pain. Eppes winced but kept on, the others crowding in, hoping to hear something from the injured man.

"Charlie. Charlie, it's Don. Charlie, you're safe. We need to know about the code."

"Don?" It wasn't more than a hiss of pain and the eyes never came close to opening, but each of them could hear the FBI agent's name on his lips.

Don became cautiously excited. "That's right, Charlie. I'm here, and you're safe. We got McGee back, too." He smoothed damp curls off of his brother's forehead, needing touch to tell him that the cold of the river was ebbing out of his brother's body.

Charlie relaxed; they could see it in the very lines of his body. "Thought he was Penfield," he whispered.

"That's right, and we got him out of there. McGee is safe, Charlie." Don squeezed Charlie's hand reassuringly, avoiding the various lines and equipment that dotted his brother's arm, and returned to the thing that they needed most. "What about the code, Charlie?"

Charlie muttered something. Don looked up at the others. They shook their heads, eyebrows furrowed. "Charlie, say it again. I didn't get that."

Charlie coughed, and a fleck of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He tried to lick dry lips, even that small movement causing pain. He coughed again, another whimper forced out of him.

"He's not awake enough—" David started to say, when one of the machines overhead started to whine. Little beeps increased in both volume and speed, indicating something amiss.

The nurses were in the room in a flash. "Out," one ordered curtly, equipment already in her hands and ready for use. "Jen, open up the lines. Denise, get the Lord High Sturgeon's ass back in here. Out," she repeated to the Federal agents, wanting to be sympathetic but the immediate need for action overriding all other considerations.

"Charlie?" Eppes wasn't about to go, staring at his brother. Gibbs grabbed his arm, pulled him away as the surgeon barreled back in. Orders were shouted, and it looked like mildly organized chaos as the Federal agents tried to get out of the way.

Sinclair helped tug Eppes back out of the room. "Don, let them do their job. Charlie will be all right," he insisted. "We just have to give him time."

"I pushed him too much," Don whispered, staring through the glass at the crowd of medical personnel working on his brother. "I shouldn't have asked him anything. I should have let him rest."

"You had no choice, Eppes," Gibbs reminded him. "This isn't just your brother's life at stake. We need that code."

"Yes, but—"

"No choice." Gibbs wouldn't let his counterpart shoulder any blame. "This is national security, Eppes. If you hadn't asked, I would have had to. Anybody get what he said?" he asked, turning to the two other FBI agents, deliberately changing the topic.

Sinclair frowned. "No."

Granger merely looked puzzled. "Almost sounded like he said 'ass'."

"Maybe 'class'?" Sinclair suggested.

"Bass? Gas?" Gibbs ran through the alphabet. "Lass?"

"What would it mean?" Don cut to the chase.

Gibbs thought for several long moments, then shrugged. "Beats me."