a/n - Glad I've caught your attention with this one, it was a lot of fun to write. Will it be slash? If's it published under this profile instead of my main on, then you can figure that it's either slash, hardcore het or some other very rough topic, so yes, this will be mild slash - eventually.

"We're slowing down."

Kort shifted closer to the door to take a look. "Yeah, looks like we're coming up to a freight yard, but I don't see any sign of a town anywhere around here."

Judging from the flat land and the time they'd been on the train, McGee suspected that they were someplace in the mid-west. The only thing worse than remaining on a train would be wandering around in a corn field for hours. "Stay or get off?"

"Well, we sure don't want to get caught by some hick sheriff and I'm not in the mood to walk twenty miles to find a town." Kort sat up and pulled his coat back on as McGee slipped the laptop bag back over his neck.

"Another train? Hopefully we'll end up in a city big enough to stay hidden until we can get word to Gibbs."

In the early morning light the two men jumped from the slowing train, staying close to the track as to not be seen until the last car passed them and they were able to scramble away. Another train was picking up speed and that was their new destination. As they'd done before, Kort was the first to jump, then he quickly turned to make sure McGee safely made the jump,weighted down with the bag he carried.

Just as he hauled McGee up into the car, Kort saw movement behind him in the shadowy car. Before he could turn, he was jumped, feeling a sharp pain in his back. He went down hard, taking McGee with him. He was vaguely aware of the thud as McGee's head hit the side of the open door, but their attacker was his first priority. Barely taking the time to register the appearance of the wild-eyed transient, he kicked the knife out of his hand before pulling the unconscious NCIS agent away from the open door. When the rail bum charged at them again, Kort didn't hesitate to snap his neck.

Adrenaline spent, Kort dropped to his knees. He reached under his coat to press on the painful spot and his hand came away covered in blood. Cursing at his luck, Kort dug around to find the knife, using it to cut away his undershirt for a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding. Once that was accomplished, he turned his attention to McGee.

"Crap, kid, can you hear me?" Tapping on his face only produced a low moan. "Come on, McGee, don't do this to me. Gibbs will kill me if I bring you back broken." There was another groan, then Tim went still.

-NCIS-

"What have you got, Abs?" Gibbs arrived in the lab, the team and Hicks on his heels. She frowned at the sight of the eager CIA agent, and started giving her report as her hand casually moved, tapping against the table. "None of the fingerprints you found on the train belong to either McGee or Kort. I only found their fingerprints on the phones."

"That does not make sense, Abby. Surely they must have touched something."

Tony had been the one to fingerprint most of the box car, with little help from Hicks, so he answered Ziva's question. "Old wood and rusted metal aren't real good for lifting prints. Most of what we got were smudges. Were there any other prints on the phones?"

"Nope. Kort's phone only had his prints on it, and McGee's had both his and Kort's fingerprints." Abby put the pictures of the phones up for all of them to see, the recovered prints color coded to identify the source.

Gibbs studied the locations of Kort's fingerprints on McGee's phone, nodding as he changed the subject. "Have you identified any of the other prints?"

"Nothing in AFIS, I'm still running them through Interpol. Now, the shooting victims," She paused, struggling with the fear that her friend was being held by such ruthless suspects. "The ones killed in the caboose were all shot close range with a 9 mil, consistent with the casings you found. The victims in the engine were all shot with a high powered rifle. There guys are pros, Gibbs."

"Yeah, I know, Abs." Gibbs glanced down at her hand before giving her a slight nod that her message had been received before kissing her cheek and herding the rest of them out the door.

-NCIS-

Cursing, Kort dragged McGee further away from the open door before checking him more closely. Luckily, his pupils were still reacting to light, even if one was a bit sluggish. Kort next turned his attention to the dead body. Distasteful as it was, he dug through the man's pockets, pulling out an old battered wallet and a large amount of change. Not wanting to be found with an obviously murdered corpse, Kort rolled him to the door. The train was still in a desolate area, and when they crossed a bridge, he pushed the body out the door, letting it fall into the water below. With any luck, the current would carry it far away from the tracks before it was discovered. Exhausted, Kort looked through the supplies the hobo had stacked in the corner. They'd been rationing the water McGee had been carrying, but it was almost gone, so he was relieved to find several water bottles amongst the cans and cartons.

-NCIS-

Announcing that he was going for coffee and that they'd better have something when he got back, Gibbs stormed out of the squad room. Instead of getting off the elevator at the main floor, he continued on down to Abby's lab. She didn't say anything when he arrived, just turned her music up even louder and walked into the office. Gibbs was also silent as he followed her, waiting until she closed and locked her office door, the heavy glass cutting off the sound. As soon as the door sealed, she ran a scanner over him, looking for hidden listening devices.

Gibbs watched all this with a raised eyebrow. "Okay, Abs, tell me the rest. What is going on?"

Rather than speak, she handed him McGee's phone. He fumbled with the unfamiliar touchscreen until she got impatient and took it back. Gibbs watched as she pulled up Tim's call log, his text messages, even his address book, all were empty. "He wiped his phone, Gibbs. Even the pictures his sister just sent him from Florida."

"Protecting the people he cares about, in case it fell into the wrong hands."

Abby nodded and took a deep breath. "He started writing apps for phones a while ago."

"Apps?"

"Applications, programs and things the phone could do. He showed me one last week that he was working on. It partitioned the memory on the phone so something could be hidden, like a message." Abby messed with the phone a few more seconds and handed it over to Gibbs. Squinting, he read the brief message.

Been made, double xx-ed.

Way bigger than told. Suspects – E. European accents.

Going underground, will contact when safe.

Kort doesn't trust his team. Ours bugged?

Will Vance reimburse for tossed phone?

"Damn it." Gibbs glanced around the small office as Abby took back the phone.

"I swept, my office is clear, but I found a bug in the lab."

He nodded, that explained the loud music, even by Abby's standards. "Can you trace it without attracting attention?"

"It'll take a little longer."

She looked scared for her friend and Gibbs tugged her close, kissing her cheek before whispering in her ear. "It's going to be okay, Abby."

"He's not trained for stuff like this, Gibbs."

"McGee's smart, and Kort is street savvy. Kort will keep him safe until they can surface."

"You promise?"

Gibbs leaned back, letting go. "Hey, Kort knows I'll kick his ass if something happens to McGee. He'll be all right."

Abby didn't look entirely convinced as she slipped a scanner to Gibbs. "So, what do we do? There has to be something we can do to help them."

"We give McGee and Kort time to get to safety." Gibbs glared out at the empty lab for a second, wondering who had betrayed them. "Then, we find out who's dirty."

-NCIS-

Kort wanted to laugh as he looked through the bag McGee had been dragging around with him. The CIA agent had wondered why a full sized messenger bag for such a small netbook, but now he saw that the rest of the bag was filled with other supplies. In addition to the bottles of water and energy bars they had been nursing was a basic first aid kit and a variety of supplies, some he only vaguely recognized. Hidden in the strap was a rather lethal looking knife and several electronics that he didn't recognize at all.

"Remind me not to piss you off, kid."

-NCIS-

Gibbs slipped the scanner in his shirt and grabbed an empty coffee cup from the trash before strolling back into the squad room. "You got anything for me yet?" He knew they couldn't, so after a few seconds of listening to reports of BOLO's issued, he threw the used cup in his trash can, picked up a random file from his desk and glared at his own agents plus the CIA agent that was currently at McGee's desk. "While you three numskulls figure out why these gun runners kidnapped our agents, I have to explain the extra man-hours to Vance."

Holding the file to cover the slight bulge in his shirt, Gibbs looked over at Tony, then Ziva, telling them with a slight shift of his eye to play along before he turned his attention back to Hicks. "Move to one of the empty desks, Hicks. We don't use the desk of a missing agent around here."

Hicks had an odd expression on his face, but he obediently stood up and moved away from the desk as Gibbs watched his hands closely. "Umm, okay, is that desk all right?" He pointed to an empty cubicle around the corner.

Gibbs didn't want him able to do anything without the team's knowledge and waved his hand towards another desk. "No, that one." He waited a minute for Hicks to settle before barking out his next order. "DiNozzo, take McGee's computer down to Abby."

Tony played along, immediately moving to McGee's desk while Hicks looked up, startled. "If he and Kort were kidnapped, why go through his computer?"

"Agency policy, anytime an agent goes missing, they have to be investigated. Hell, for all we know, McGee might have killed Kort and their contact and stolen the handguns for himself."

"The geek?" Hicks started to laugh.

"Hey." Tony looked up from his task of undoing the wires from the computer tower. "DiNozzo's rule number seventeen: never underestimate a geek."

The first part of his plan in motion, Gibbs headed for the elevator, glaring at another agent, who promptly took the stairs. Once inside, he hit the emergency stop and went to work.