Thanks so much everyone for the very encouraging comments. I'm glad to hear that there is still an interest from some of you, even after so many weeks and I have to confess that it gave me motivation to continue writing! Here is chapter 4, which unexpectedly turned out to be yet another transition chapter… after I made some changes to my main plot. Chapter 5 will finally have some interesting scenes, I promise- so bear with me and let me know what you think! :-D

Chapter 4

The sun was about to rise over the city of Washington when Gibbs left Tim and Abby in the lab and joined his other two agents in the squad room.

"DiNozzo!" he shouted.

Tony, who had dozed off on his chair at an undetermined point in the (early) morning, immediately started awake. As a result, the pile of files which all this time, had been challenging the laws of gravity by staying on his desk finally gave in and met their fate. Tony's eyes travelled down to the floor, where they had just fallen, then back up from their landing point (which also happened to be Gibbs's feet) directly into his boss's eyes. "Ah, good morning, Boss," he said, quickly straightening his clothes. "I was just-"

"-snoring like a broken coffee machine," completed Ziva from behind her desk.

Gibbs smirked. "You two have anything new since the last time I saw you?"

Tony, fully awake now, spoke first. "The cheerleader - Sharon Francez - was more than surprised to hear about McGee again. I talked to her yesterday evening. She confirms that she has not spoken to him since they cancelled that Hallowe'en date." He paused, grinning broadly. "Quite frankly, I don't really think it could have gotten any further anyway between them. I mean, boss, you should see her, she's way out of McGee's league, and it's -"

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Anything else? Ziva?" he cut Gibbs before Tony had the time to further elaborate on his experience of women and on his opinion of what was in McGee's league.

Ziva cleared her throat. "Colonel Makepeace appears to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth," she began. Gibbs sighed, but she quickly added: "But, I found something. While I was looking for information on his transfer, I came across this order of transfer." She showed a scan of a signed letter on the screen. "At first, I thought it was a prison transfer for him, but it turned out it was a transfer order for his possessions. Apparently, everything that was in his house was shipped out to Area 51..."

"So he stole something. Something highly classified," deducted Gibbs, frowning. "Ziva, I suppose we can't access to any detail on what was transferred?"

"Well, we don't have the clearance, but -" Ziva pursed her lips slightly. "Perhaps McGee could-"

Gibbs had head-slapped her before she could even finish. "Hey, what was that for?" she protested.

"Saying something like that out loud," Gibbs replied, half-smiling nonetheless.

"Where is McGee anyway?" asked Tony suddenly. "Is he okay?"

Gibbs chuckled. "Oh yeah, he is. He's at Abby's lab. Tell him to come over here right away. See if he can do something about the classified US Air Force files. I'll be at the Director's office."

"Didn't he just say that he didn't want us to hack into those files?" commented Ziva once Gibbs had left.

Tony answered by putting a finger in front of his mouth. Ziva shook her head and called the lab to get McGee.

A few minutes later, McGee was in the squad room. He looked positively exhausted.

"Guys, what's the emergency?" he asked tiredly.

Ziva eyed him worriedly. "What happened to you McGee? You are as white as a sheep."

"Sheet, Ziva." corrected Tony, who quickly examined McGee's face before announcing his diagnosis. "Abby?"

McGee simply heaved a deep sigh in reply.

"I take it that she didn't take the news of your 'death' too well then?" enquired Ziva.

McGee let out a small laugh. "Depends what part you're talking about. The part where there is a corpse looking like me down in Autopsy actually had her sort of excited."

Tony took his chin in his hand. "Hmm, so she has a theory. What is it? Clones? Aliens? Robots?"

Mc Gee was not in the mood to give more details. "Something like that, yeah," he simply said.

"Then what was the problem?" wondered Ziva. "I mean, beside the fact that she is going to ask us all for irrelevant details during the investigation so she can feed her own theories."

That gained another sigh from McGee. "Yeah, there is that. But mostly… well. Gibbs showed her the pictures. And, I think she'll never stop to lecture me for marrying a cheerleader."

Ziva winced in sympathy. "Ouch."

Tony, on the other hand, frowned. "I don't understand. What's wrong with marrying a cheerleader? I dated at least half a dozen cheerleaders before, and -"

McGee ignored him and continued his complaining. "And for once, it's not even my fault! I mean, I did not even start dating that cheerleader. Just because there's this guy who looks like me -"

"-and has the same DNA. And carries your ID papers."

"And the badge, don't forget the badge, Ziva."

McGee looked increasingly depressed. "Why, thanks for the support, guys. As usual," he commented bitterly. He sat at his desk and rested a hand on his forehead.

Ziva walked to his desk. "Sorry, McGee," she said softly.

"Yeah, Probie. We realize it must be kind of weird for you."

When McGee opened his mouth to reply, all he could achieve was a deep yawn, which caused Tony, who was looking at him, to yawn in turn. Ziva quickly followed. It had been almost twenty-four hours since this strange case had started, and none of them had had the chance to sleep properly since. They were all completely exhausted.

Suddenly however, Ziva straightened. A sign that both McGee and Tony immediately recognized: Gibbs was around. "So, McGee!" she exclaimed, a bit too enthusiastically. "As we were saying, perhaps you could find a way to get access to those files and-"

"- not necessary anymore, Ziva," said Gibbs as he walked to his desk. "Air Force is sending some guys from Cheyenne Mountain to 'help us with the investigation'. They'll be here at the beginning of the afternoon," he explained, opening his drawer. He took his sig and his badge and slammed the drawer shut. "You all go home and catch a few hours of sleep. Be here at 10:00, fresh and ready to make sure we have copies of every piece of evidence these Air Force guys will want their hands on."

"Yes boss!" Tony, Ziva and McGee replied all in unison. Less than five minutes later, they were all gone.