The longer Kort sat in the conference room, the more anxious he was becoming. He knew these people were very good at their jobs and while he had to give them enough information to find the people responsible for the vicious attack on Tim, he also had to be careful not to tell them too much. If he did he might endanger the one person on the face of the earth the meant something to him. He was walking a razor's edge.

"The truth will cost a penny?", Tony muttered to himself again. "What are you trying to tell us McGee?"

"Excuse me?", Kort interjected himself into conversation. "Since the I received the voicemail, I have been very patiently waiting for someone to tell me, what are the Rules?"
Gibbs just looked at the man, not willing to tell him anything, but realizing without complete honestly by everyone involved they may never find out who attacked McGee.

After a very pregnant pause he explained the Rules that McGee had listed in his message to the man.

"And what about the rest, are you going to tell me or am I going to have to figure it out as we go?"
Gibbs looked at him and smirked.

Vance decided that it was time for him to take control of the briefing and get it back on track.

"Okay, so who are the women and children we are supposed to protect, what are we wrong about and finally what on earth cost a penny?"
Kort pulled back out of the conversation when Vance brought up these questions, because even though he had a good idea who the women and children were he wasn't willing to disclose that information if not absolutely necessary.

Tony noticed the shift in body language in the man and was about to call him out on it when the door to the conference room opened once again.

"Director, we have a problem?" Agent Travis, the head of Cyber Security, said as he entered the room.

Vance rubbed his face as he turned to look at the man.

"We have a breach in the secure network. Someone is systematically going through our files and erasing all non-case related activities of Special Agent McGee since December of last year."

"What exactly does that mean?", Gibbs asked because if truth be told he wasn't really paying attention to the man until his agent's name was said.

"Any message, note or email sent to or from Special Agent McGee not directly linked to a case is being erased, completely scrubbed out of existence actually. We can't even tell how many links have been affected because after it is removed, when can't find any proof that the links even exsisted."
"Well find out, we need to know what's being removed from our data banks." Vance was not happy.

"That's just it, we need to borrow Agent McGee, since he's that one that wrote most of the coding for our cyber security network."

"Agent McGee is unavailable at this time. Just figure out what is going on and keep me in the loop."
Once the door closed behind the frazzled young man, Fornell was the first one to speak, "It sounds like McGee put that in as a safety protocol if he thought his system had been breached on any level."
"What makes you say that?" Vance questioned.

"It sounds like the program he uses to cover his tracks anytime you have him hack us." Fornell said in a matter of fact tone.

Kort just nodded in agreement, "Your right, our cyber team is trying to find a way to follow it, since we can't seem to keep him out, my Director just wants to know what you cowboys are looking at when you barge into our system."

Vance maintain a straight face, but just barely, "I have no idea what you gentlemen are talking about. No one at this agency would illegally hack into another agency's computer system."
The grins from all the NCIS Agents in the room told another story all together.

The humor in the room was short lived, when Vance decided to once again bring them back to task, "Now we have another question to find an answer to, what is McGee trying to hide that goes back to December?"

Gibbs took that moment to take charge, "Kort can you get us a copy of everything you sent McGee since this began?"
Kort nodded, "He logged into the computer that was in the room and quickly pulled up everything he had discovered since first meeting with McGee in April.

He printed it out and handed it over to Gibbs, "If Tim is deleting information on this system I figured it would be best if we have a hard copy of the information available to us."
Gibbs handed the list to Tony, "Start with the children, find out if any were in the US during the time frame that McGee was attacked."
Kort once again stiffened up, this time Vance and Gibbs also noticed his change in body language.

"Anything you want to share?" Vance questioned giving the man a pointed look.

"I guess you should know my name is on that list, September 23, 1961."
Gibbs closed in on the man, " That moves you to the top of our suspect list."
Kort just rolled his eyes, an impish grin appeared on his face, "Rule 51, Gibbs."

Gibbs backed off slightly and turned to face the rest of his team, "Ellie figure that out." he said pointing to the email that was still up on the plasma.

"Abby help the computer guys figure out what's being taken out of our system."
"And what will you be doing, Gibbs?" Vance asked trying to appear that he hadn't lost control of the meeting.

"Kort, Fornell and myself willing be heading out to do an interview near Langley." he said giving the Director a heated glare that clearly past along his intentions of checking in on his fallen agent.

AN: Hope you enjoyed. I must apologize but since I work in retail I don't think I'll be able to update again until after Black Friday. Please review with your thoughts and comments as they will probably be the only thing keeping me sane until the craziness ends next Saturday. :) stray