McGee had been behind the closed doors of the emergency room for over an hour by the time Major Harrison arrived to give his report. Everyone was happy to hear that the twin boys had no injuries beyond a few scrapes and bruises and were already on their way back home. As Harrison finished, the Captain who had taken over at the scene arrived to give them an update before returning to the mountain. Gibbs could feel the multiple sets of eyes on his back as he listened. The suspect appeared to have taken his own life when he heard the Marines breaking through the wall of rocks that had separated him from the agents and the young boys he had kidnapped. The sound of a final shot, a bullet wound to the temple, and a pistol still clutched in his hand made it a likely scenario, but it would be up to Ducky to make the final determination. Since the Medical Examiner and his assistant had only arrived at Bethesda moments ago to wait with the rest of them the autopsy would have to wait. He expected the rest of his people to be happy at the announcement, but the women in the private waiting room were furious.

"He took the coward's way out, Gibbs." Abby's plaintive wail echoed in the small room while Ziva shook her head in anger.

"Without a direct link to Maycap, how can I interrogate him?"

Jenny was leaning back against the wall behind her chair and didn't even open her eyes as she answered Ziva. "We'll find a link, and then Maycap is yours, Ziva."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Abby grinned. "Oh, can I watch?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Who's Maycap?" Once he had their attention, Gibbs continued. "Are the three of you ready to tell us what is going on?" Next to him DiNozzo watched, his rabid curiosity masked by his carefully blank expression. Harrison made no attempt to cover his curiosity as he took the last empty seat in the room. Ducky leaned forward, ready to listen while Palmer blinked repeatedly as he tried to take everything in.

The three women glanced at each other before Shepard broke their silence. "Not quite twenty years ago Gregory Maycap was a serial killer who kidnapped, tortured and then murdered several sets of twin boys. All of the twins were dependents of the military and all of them were kidnapped right off the base they were living on. At the site of each abduction, a tarot card was found." She waited as the shocked men in the room absorbed what she had said.

DiNozzo was the first to recover, possibly because he had heard the basics and had been observing his partner since the call had come in. "One of the sets of twins were McGee's brothers, right? His older brothers I bet." He turned to their boss. "McGee was so intense, like it was personal."

"It was personal, but…"

Ziva interrupted Abby, her photographic memory a blessing and a curse as she remembered each and every detail from the report. "The last set of twins kidnapped were Terrance and Timothy McGee. He killed Terrance, but Tim survived his injuries."

"Oh, Timothy, our poor, poor lad." Ducky's mournful words expressed everyone's thoughts as they ached for their friend. "What happened? How did he survive?"

Ziva continued, not looking at any of them, not even Abby who was holding her hand tightly. "After Maycap would kidnap them, apparently he would hide them in some sort of hole, sometimes a dry well or an abandoned mine shaft. It was later determined this was to terrify and exhaust his victims. It is possible that he stayed close enough to hear their struggles and cries for help."

"McGee talked about a window of time or something that we had before the boys would be hurt. Something about how long they would be intact if he was right."

The dark haired Israeli woman agreed with her team mate. "Yes, after a time, he would remove the youngest twin from the hole and begin to hurt him. It would start with a beating and progress from there. Eventually, the injuries would become fatal. He would force the older twin to watch; at some point he would duct tape their hands together. Near the end, he would take them to a high peak and shoot the surviving twin. The bodies would be found sometimes hundreds of feet down a ravine, still duct taped together. None of the bullets were recovered. Due to the small size of the victims, each shot was a through and through."

Palmer felt sick and was grateful that they weren't going to have two small bodies on their autopsy tables in the morning. "How did McGee survive the gunshot wound?"

This time it was Jenny who filled in the blanks. "He didn't. Tim was the younger brother."

Feeling like he'd just been sucker punched, Gibbs scrambled to his feet, but before he could say anything, Tony was almost shouting. "He was the younger brother – he was the one being tortured? How bad?" He turned to the one woman he knew would not hold back as he repeated the question. "How bad?"

Ziva made no attempt to hide her anguish. "I do not understand how such monsters could be allowed to live freely in this country. In Israel he would have been killed after the first time he hurt a child." Before she could reveal any details of their friend's ordeal, a doctor came in to speak with them.

"How is he?"

"Can we see him yet?"

The questions were being fired off before Dr. Adler finished introducing himself. He looked around in surprise at the worried people ready to grill him. "I really need to speak with Agent McGee's family first. Are his parents here?"

There was a moment of stunned silence before Jenny Shepard stepped forward, grabbing Gibbs' arm on the way. "We're right here, so tell us how our boy is doing?" When the doctor hesitated, Jenny put a deliberate tremble in her voice as she continued. "Please, it's been a very long day. Is Timmy going to be all right?"

If the doctor had any questions, the 'tearful mother' put a stop to them. "He's going to be fine eventually but I will warn you, he's going to have a long and uncomfortable recovery ahead of him. He has suffered three separate hairline fractures of his right scapula plus another fracture in the humerus up near the shoulder. He'll be in a sling for about six weeks then probably some physical therapy will be necessary but he should regain full strength and mobility in his arm and shoulder. He's also got a mild concussion from the blow to his forehead. I don't expect any lasting problem from that as long as he takes it easy for the next few weeks while the injury resolves itself. The injury that is going to be the most troublesome will be the one to his hand. We're going to be spending several hours at least digging all of the debris out of the torn skin. That's going to have to wait until we get his blood sugar back up and get some fluids in him."

"Why?" Gibbs frowned at the doctor. "Isn't waiting going to increase the chance of infection?"

"We've already got him on an antibiotic drip for the infection. I won't lie to you, Mr. McGee. This is going to be very painful and because of his head injury we'd prefer not to give him heavy narcotics for the next twenty four hours. Dehydration and low blood sugar are two additional complications he doesn't need right now."

Before Dr. Adler could leave, Jenny grasped his hand to shake it. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Your welcome." He returned the handshake as he studied the woman. "If I may say, your son has your eyes."

Jenny bit back a smile. "Thank you again, Dr. Adler. Luckily, he also has his father's stubborn streak." Gibbs choked back a laugh as the doctor agreed with her.

"It's probably a good thing. It's most likely what kept him alive."

All of a sudden Gibbs didn't feel like laughing anymore.

_____________________

In the medical wing of a prison less than one hundred miles from Bethesda, Gregory Maycap stared at the ceiling, smiling. He would have recognized anywhere that 'unknown federal agent' znn had shown stumbling out of the tunnel on its live broadcast. His greatest unfinished masterpiece could now be finished.