Gibbs slammed on the brakes, bringing the jeep to a screeching halt a good twenty yards past the team's van before throwing it in reverse and backing up to park next to the van as he realized that his windbreaker and maglight might not be up to the task ahead. Wasting little time he scrambled into the back of the van, digging through the open lockers to find two space blankets. He immediately noticed that the repelling rope and rifle were missing. Grimacing, he shoved the space blankets in his pocket and grabbed one of the remaining large flashlights before returning to the jeep and racing toward the third gate, still standing open. He hoped that the rest of the searchers would follow this blatant clue.

Pausing inside the tunnel for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimming light, Gibbs turned on the flashlight and examined the footprints left behind. Much to his surprise, McGee was in the lead still on this one. Satisfied, he nodded to himself before following them. With such a well laid out path, he was able to run, hoping to catch up with them before they caught up with a serial killer.

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Director Jennifer Shepard enjoyed her favorite perch on the landing of the stairs. Half way between the busy bullpen and the oppressive stillness of the upper mezzanine outside of MTAC, it was the place she felt most at home. Gibbs was right; she was still a field agent at heart, unable to resist the siren call of an interesting case or a worried agent. What she was observing was a mix of both and before she was even aware of moving, she was standing at Ziva's desk, reading over Abby's shoulder. Abby was silently crying, while Ziva's blank expression was belied by the white knuckles wrapped around the arms of her desk chair.

"My God, did we know about this?"

Ziva carefully straightened her fingers as she leaned forward, taking a deep breath. "All the personnel assigned to this case have since retired, and McGee never mentioned a word of this until he recognized something about the crime scene. What that something is, we do not know. Neither he, nor Tony or Gibbs has called back in since he requested I pull this file." Just as carefully, she removed the file from Abby's hands and laid it on the desk, staring at the photos it contained. "However, it does explain many of McGee's phobias; phobias that I will never, never tease him about again."

"It's not your fault, Ziva, you didn't know." Abby sat up and wiped her eyes. "None of us knew, but now we do and we'll start understanding all the things he never told us." Forcing herself not to babble, she turned around and stared at the Director. "Why didn't he tell us? All these years and he never told us."

"Abby…" Jenny took a deep breath and tried again. "Abby, this isn't the kind of thing that comes up in casual conversation. I'm sure he didn't know how to talk about it." Another deep breath before she nudged them back on task. "What about the original killer, did you check his status?"

Ziva appeared grateful for the diversion. "Gregory Maycap is still in custody. He has been a model prisoner since his arrest, took a deal with the prosecutor to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to a total of one hundred and thirty-five years. According to prison officials, he gets no visitors, receives no mail, and spends as much time as possible in his cell. He avoids each and every attempt to interact with the rest of the prison population. The only trips he makes willingly are for medical care.

"He is participating in a medical research program. The prison has not released the details, but he is treated there on a weekly basis and transported once a month to a private hospital." Ziva looked up at the other two women. "I hope the research will save other lives because his is certainly not worth the effort."

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The silence blanketed the cavern as the two men stepped into the space, broken only by the occasional whimper heard from the exhausted boys. DiNozzo prowled the perimeter, looking for any sign of where the suspect could have gone while McGee cautiously moved towards what appeared to be a mine shaft in the center of ground. Sig at his side, Tim tried to appear non-threatening to the victims while keeping his guard up. As soon as he was able to peer into the shaft and see that the boys were alone, he relaxed slightly, trusting Tony to have his back.

"Kevin, Kyle, I'm Agent McGee. Agent DiNozzo and I are here to take you home." He kept his voice soft and his movements slow and cautious as he pulled out his badge and maglight and tossed both items down to the twins. "There's my badge so you can see that I'm really an agent. Now, we are going to get you boys out of here."

One of the tow-headed boys reached out and caught the leather wallet as it fell. The other picked up the small light from where it had rolled to a stop. They opened the badge case and studied it for a long while. Behind him, McGee could sense Tony becoming more edgy but he knew that gaining the trust of the twins was crucial to getting them out without attracting the attention of the man who had put them in there.

"Can we go home now, Agent McGee?" Apparently satisfied with the badge in the wallet, the more adventurous of the two boys looked up.

"Kevin? You're Kevin, right?" When the boy nodded, he continued. "Can you boys climb a rope? We need to get you out of here before he comes back." They looked at each other briefly before Kevin nodded again. McGee grinned at them as he fed the rope down to them. "All right, Kyle you go first. Kevin you start as soon as he's on solid ground." McGee braced himself to take the weight.

"Do you need a hand, McGee?" DiNozzo glanced over his shoulder quickly before returning his focus to watching the many ways into the cavern they were in.

"Just watch out backs."

"You got it." Hyperaware, DiNozzo strained to listen for any movement beyond the cavern, the echoes of the boys scrambling out of the shaft making it difficult to sort the sounds out. Once they were on solid ground, McGee gave them a quick exam.

"We found some blood, who was hurt?" Tim took the light and badge back from them. The badge went back in his pocket as he used his maglight to quickly scan for any head injuries or broken bones.

The twin that McGee now knew was Kevin pointed to his brother. "He had a bloody nose, he gets them a lot." Kyle stared at the ground, not saying a word. McGee tilted the boy's face up to take a better look. The smeared blood under his nose was dried.

"It's a good thing you did, Kyle. The blood drops led us right to you." That comment gave him the boys' undivided attention. "Now, on the way out of here Agent DiNozzo is going to lead and I want the two of you to stay close behind him. I'm going to be behind you. You guys stay between us and do exactly what we tell you, okay?" A quick nod from both the boys and the four of them were on the move, quickly retracing their steps.

They were less than a quarter of the way out when a muffled curse caught Tony's attention. Suddenly, a smaller tunnel behind them was lit from a light they were not carrying.

"Company!"

"Boys, run!"

The voices of the two agents overlapped as they sprung into action, DiNozzo falling back to give cover as McGee rushed their charges towards safety, ducking as shots rang out. DiNozzo returned fire, blindly emptying the clip down the now darkened tunnel before switching to the rifle. The suspect was obviously well protected as he continued to fire until Tony heard a scream of pain and the last volley of shots hit the ceiling of the tunnel. He ducked as a shower of rock pelted him, and then dove out of the way as larger boulders began to fall. Behind him he saw Tim throw himself over the two boys as the rocks continued to come down.