Note: SO sorry for the delay between chapters. Life happened, and well… I got very, very busy. But I had not forgotten about this story, and I want to thank you all readers for your nice reviews which kept me wanting to go back to the story and write the next parts. Here is your reward for a long, long wait indeed. In this transitional chapter, the plot is revealed… sort of. But can it get really more complicated? Possibly! :-)

Chapter 7

"Damnit!" said Gibbs as the connection died. He did not waste another second, and grabbed his car keys, ready to drive to where McGee was.

He was surprised to find O'Neill in his way, blocking the way to the stairs. "What the hell are you doing, Jack? McGee thinks he has been shot, this is not the time for-"

But Jack shook his head. "Your agent will be alright. I'm sorry Jethro, but we have to stay here for now. Don't worry, everything is fine."

Gibbs was furious, and not trying to hide it. "Just let me the hell out of here or I swear I will -"

O'Neill winced. Of course, in Gibbs's situation, he would have reacted exactly in the same manner. "Look, just trust me on this, okay? Your agent said he thought he had been shot, right?"

"Yes, and so what? I'm not going to take a chance and let him bleed to death -" Gibbs raised an eyebrow as O'Neill took a strange device from his bag and showed it to him. "What the hell is this thing?"

"It's called a ZAT gun," said O'Neill, calmly. "It shoots electromagnetic blasts - first shoot stuns, second kills. This is what happened to McGee," he said, demonstrating the blast on a toolbox nearby. A sort of blue electrical chord seemed to coat the box for a moment, then it faded away, leaving the box intact.

Without a word, Gibbs took the gun from O'Neill's hand and examined the object and its strange, snake-shaped design. "What is this, some sort of experimental weapon?"

O'Neill shrugged. "You could say that. "

"And how can you be so sure that this is what McGee was shot with? And that he wasn't shot twice, for that matter?"

"Because I know the people who used it, and while I did not expect them to shoot him like that -and I'm sorry about it, really – I know that they did not want to kill him. Also, because Carter is following them as we speak and making sure McGee is okay."

As expected, Gibbs was not happy with that answer. At all. He took a step forward; so his face was practically touching O'Neill's. The latter did not move an inch. "Are you telling me that you deliberately put my agent in danger?" Gibbs asked coldly. He continued to stare at O'Neill, not blinking once.

The Air Force colonel was not blinking, either. "I fully trust Major Carter with her mission, and I do not think that your agent is in any kind of danger, as long as she is watching his back," he replied on a tone that showed he was not scared of Gibbs.

Not that Gibbs was scared of O'Neill, either. His eyes were shooting daggers. "You have two minutes to explain to me what kind of game the US Air Force is playing at the expense of the safety of NCIS agents."

O'Neill relaxed his position, and heaved a sigh. "For the record, it was not my idea, and I've expressed my disagreement. But an order is an order. You know the military."

Gibbs frowned, but did not interrupt the colonel.

"Can I at least explain myself before you glare at me to death ?" asked O'Neill.

A brief nod from Gibbs was the only reply he received. The look on the ex-Marine's face showed that his patience was wearing thin and that the other man had better start explaining quickly.

O'Neill obliged. "As we told you yesterday, a few months ago, we arrested for high treason a group of a dozen of people - Marines, Air Force officers, even civilians. Colonel Makepeace was a member of this cell. They had stolen very… sensitive technology, such as the device that caused the appearance of that 'other agent McGee' you saw the other day."

"Yeah, that's what you told us already, Jack."

"The thing is, we were led to believe that we had not arrested everyone in that cell. In the past month, we've had proof that the cell was still active, and we needed to identify its remaining members quickly."

"So, what… you decided to use us as bait?"

O'Neill winced at that. "It's a bit more sophisticated than that, but huh… in essence,… yeah."

"Again," he quickly added, "the idea isn't mine, and the order comes from way above me in the chain of command. For reasons I am not at liberty to discuss with you, this is a matter of national security. Or maybe even of… world security."

Gibbs's fists were clenched. He did not like where this was going, he felt manipulated. "What exactly was - or is- the plan?"

"Well, ten days ago, we got a signal of human activity from the zone in Area 51 where we had stored all the devices we had retrieved from the cell. At first we thought there were intruders, but when we went to check, the only thing we found was… a body. A man, who had just died there from his injuries, but had lived long enough to set the alarm, apparently. We autopsied the man and found he was an NCIS agent who went by the name of Timothy McGee. After a quick check, we learned that agent McGee was alive and well here in DC. Based on our experience with alternate realities -" He raised a hand to stop Gibbs's protests "- yeah, I know," he said, "it sounds nuts, but just bear with me, okay?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes, but let him continue.

"- based on our experience, we understood that this was not the McGee from this reality, but one who had come here from elsewhere through one of the devices we had stored in area 51. Because, yes, as crazy as it may sound, the alternate reality thing that Carter was explaining to you yesterday is really true..."

"So this means that the corpse I identified at the hospital in Colorado Springs wasn't the first McGee look-alike?" asked Gibbs.

O'Neill shook his head. "No, he wasn't. Actually, in the last ten days, we've had something like nine versions of agent McGee coming from the device, all dying from their injuries… " At this, both O'Neill and Gibbs exchanged a grimace of discomfort.

"Carter analyzed the device. We knew the basics of the technology it used, but not this device in particular. It seemed they had - well, they had obtained it elsewhere." The vagueness of the explanation did not escape Gibbs, but he decided to keep his questions for later.

"Her conclusions," O'Neill went on, "were that the device we had in Area 51 was not complete. According to her, what we have there is only an 'exit' device. Meaning it was not the thing that caused the McGees to arrive in our reality, it was just the… exit door. So she thought that there must be an "entrance door" somewhere, which the McGees used to travel to this reality. One of the McGees that arrived through the device told us -before he died- that he had been searching Colonel Makepeace's house for an investigation before he suddenly finding himself here, so we assumed that the 'entrance' part of the device was still at the Colonel's place, and that all of the McGees we'd met had ended up activating it by accident."

Gibbs was starting to show signs of a headache, born from extreme confusion… and, as a matter of fact, so did colonel O'Neill.

"… anyway, we went to check Makepeace's old place, but we didn't find any device. However, we found something else there… evidence that this was part of an ongoing research program."

Gibbs was becoming tenser as O'Neill's story progressed.

"And that whatever is left of the cell has the 'entry' device, and is using it, probably to develop some nasty weapons…"

"And that's why you needed some way to let these guys out of their burrow," completed Gibbs. It was not a question. While he did not have enough information to understand the stakes of this mission, or the precise origin of the technology, he could recognize a high-priority security mission when he saw one. After all, he had taken part in his share of such missions in the past.

O'Neill nodded. "We had to act quickly, arrest these guys at all costs. Most of all, we had to find their lab, retrieve the other device and end their research. So we set up a trap, using you guys."

Gibbs seemed to be two seconds away from jumping at O'Neill's throat, but the colonel still went on. "Again, not my idea," O'Neill added. "We planted the 'exit' device at Makepeace's house. When another injured McGee emerged, we were supposed to 'anonymously' call the hospital, who would call you. And then we knew that your investigation would trigger some alarms in the cell's systems, which would eventually lead them to you. If they really were researching on that device, they would have to approach you. That's why we came here. "

"So basically, you're telling me that you knew they were going to take McGee, and led them to do so? Are the lives of NCIS agents that expendable to the Air Force? "

O'Neill knew how Gibbs felt. He would never have accepted that his team be used in such a way.

"First of all, the Director agreed with that plan," he said, but it did not seem to calm the ex-Marine in any way. Which, again, was understandable to O'Neill. "Also, we weren't sure what move they would make. This was one of the possibilities. One of the most likely, in fact, considering the fact that the corpse at Makepeace's house was a version of McGee."

"And how can you be sure that they haven't noticed that Carter was following McGee?"

"Because Carter was also watching the guys we were suspecting."

"You know who they are?"

"We had suspicions. We needed confirmation, and we needed them to lead us to wherever their base is. In other words, we needed them to make one false step – and now they did."

His phone rang at that moment, and he answered it. "Yes, Carter? Yes, I'm with him. How is he? Okay, good job, Major. Yes, we're coming."

"She has found their base and arrested them," O'Neill explained, a hint of pride in his tone. "McGee's with her. He's fine."

He turned around and started to walk up the stairs. When Gibbs didn't follow, he stopped and rolled his eyes. "Oh for crying out loud, are you brooding or what? Your boy is fine, Jethro, I promise. Come on, there is something else we'd like you to help us with. See, there is another reason why we really need to find the other part of the device…"

As Gibbs followed him to the car, he rubbed his temples, feeling very tired. This day had been very, very long one… and it looked like it was not over yet.

To be continued… (Next, the team's reaction to McGee's adventure... and more disturbing discoveries for Gibbs!)