At What Price

Chapter 1

Tim picked his case report up off the printer and handed it to Gibbs who smirked and graciously gave him a rare "Good work McGee!" As McGee turned to cross the aisle to his desk, his attention was caught by the two FBI agents emerging from the elevator. Agents Fornell and Sacks were familiar figures and usually meant trouble for Gibbs' team. Gibbs, noticing Tim still standing in the aisle, turned to see what had his eye.

"Tobias, what case of yours do you need us to solve today?" Gibbs growled.

"Good afternoon to you too, Jethro. We just need to talk with McGee – privately." Tobias retorted.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at McGee who shrugged his shoulders.

"Ok, Fornell, I'm coming too. You can have 15 minutes, unless we get a call out. DiNozzo, David, finish those reports, then grab a cold case from the stack," Gibbs said, continuing, "Tim, Fornell, Sacks, to the conference room."

As they walked out of the bullpen, Gibbs, in the back of the pack, looked at Tony and tilted his head slightly. Tony gave a brief nod and as the group disappeared down the hallway, he called Director Vance to let him know what was going on.

As the four of them entered the conference room, Tim turned to Fornell and asked, "What's this about?"

"Sit down, McGee, we have some questions for you." replied Fornell.

McGee sat, facing the door, with Gibbs to the left of him, Fornell at one end and Sacks across the table. Sacks took a file from his briefcase while Fornell asked Tim:

"Do you know Svetlana Stacevyko?

"No, I don't know anyone by that name."

Sacks opened the file folder and slid a 5X7 photo across to McGee.

"What about her?" asked Fornell.

McGee's normally pale face went as white as the edging of the photograph and he blinked his eyes several times.

"That's my stepmother." he replied.

"So what name do you know her by?"

"Did know her by, I haven't had any contact with her since she abandoned us in 1986. When she was first hired by my father as our housekeeper/nanny, we called her Natalie. Later my father told us to call her 'Mother'."

"Last name?" questioned Fornell.

"No idea. I think I was 5 years old at the time and my brother 4; I doubt my father thought her last name was important for us to know."

Off to his left, Gibbs' right eyebrow climbed to the sky in shocked anger at the mention of the word "abandoned" and his eyes gave away his further surprise when Tim mentioned his brother.

"Her real name is Svetlana Stacevyko and she has an interesting story to tell. Before we get into that, why don't you tell us your background, Agent McGee?" demanded Fornell.

McGee turned to Gibbs, silently sitting beside him. Tim could tell from the look on his boss's face that he had questions for him already, so he answered what he knew would be the first one Gibbs would want to know once he started telling his life story.

"Boss, I've always wondered if you knew any of this. The names, dates and facts are in my personnel file, I put it all in there. You've never said anything, beyond mentioning my degrees, but I know better than to assume you've read my whole file. There was never any compelling reason for me to bring it up with you. By the time I felt ready to ask you on general principles, the team had been split up, and I was in Cybercrimes; didn't work for you anymore. Both Directors Morrow and Vance know everything; I told Morrow when I was first hired, when I was assigned to Norfolk. He told me not to worry about it. I didn't know whether he'd passed the information along to Director Shepard and with her death, I thought I'd better let Director Vance know." Tim took a breath and sighed internally with relief as he received a visual acknowledgement from his boss and a slight tip of the head that also told him Vance had been alerted.