1225 ZULU
LINCOLN MEMORIAL
WASHINGTON DC
SUNDAY, 27 MAY 2001

Marine Colonel Phillip Wentworth surreptitiously glanced at his watch as he pretended to study the engraved words of the Gettysburg Address on the wall of the memorial.  He knew the words by heart, memorized during some class or another in high school.  He'd never been to the memorial before, hadn't really taken much time to see any of Washington's sights despite having lived in the city for three years.  He wasn't here to see the sights.  He was here to complete a mission.

"'….government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth'."  Wentworth forced himself not to turn in the direction of the heavily-accented, whispered voice.  "You know, in my country, 'by the people' does not work.  The last ten years have shown that.  Most people are too, um, uneducated to govern themselves effectively."

"One would almost think you wish for a return to the 'old days' in your country," Wentworth whispered in return.

The man behind him shrugged, waving one hand, a lit cigarette dangling between two fingers.  The bitter acrid smell of the tobacco assaulted Wentworth's senses, but he wasn't about to suggest that smoking in the Lincoln Memorial probably wasn't a good idea.  "There are some good things to be said about the 'old days', as you call them," the man replied.  "Come, let us walk."

Silently, the two men walked down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and down the sidewalk towards the Vietnam Memorial, ignoring the light rain the was falling.  "Did you get it?" the man asked, lifting his cigarette to his lips and taking a quick drag.

"Yes," Wentworth replied, his eyes glancing everywhere but at his companion, studying his surroundings, looking for anything and everything, a skill honed in twenty-one years in counterintelligence with the Corps.  Due to the weather and the early hour, there weren't very many people at the memorial.  A man here, holding up his infant in front of one panel, pressing a tiny hand against an engraved name.  A woman, wearing the uniform of a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, standing in front of another panel, one hand brushing rain water – or was it tears? - from her cheeks.

The presence of the military officer gave Wentworth pause.  Maybe he was being paranoid, seeing shadows where there weren't any, but he wasn't about to take any chances.  One didn’t survive long in his business otherwise.  He motioned to his companion to keep moving past the memorial.

"You are paranoid, no?"

"And maybe you're not paranoid enough," Wentworth retorted softly as they walked past the end of the Wall.  "There's a Marine Lieutenant Colonel standing by the Wall."

Wentworth's companion turned and looked down the length of the Wall, his gaze stopping on the woman in uniform.  "Perhaps she is just visiting," he suggested.

"Maybe, maybe not," Wentworth said in disbelief.  How anyone could survive in intelligence circles while being so nonchalant was beyond him.  "But I'd rather be safe."

Focused on the officer he saw in front of the Wall, Wentworth wasn't aware of the multitude of them behind it – FBI, CIA, and NCIS were all scattered on the hill behind the Wall, many dressed as picnickers, exercise enthusiasts, even sidewalk vendors.  One NCIS officer even rollerbladed past Wentworth and his companion without drawing more than a passing glance from the two men.

NCIS Agent Jessica Donahue, the woman on the rollerblades, waited until she was about twenty yards past the men, then lifted her left arm to her face as if checking the time on her watch.  "That's definitely our old friend Nikolai with Colonel Wentworth," she whispered into the tiny microphone hidden in the watch band.

"Has Wentworth passed him the disk yet?" Jessica heard in the receiver in her ear.

"Not yet, Webb," she replied in whispered exasperation.  "I thought I'd let the information pass and just skate by while they walk away."

At the other end of the Wall, Clayton Webb shook his head with a heavy sigh as he lowered his own left arm, where his microphone was hidden.  This was almost as bad as working with two military officers of his acquaintance, but he knew from studying her record that Donahue was a good agent.  In fact, she'd been the one who'd started to put together the evidence against Wentworth, then had approached the FBI and CIA to set up a joint sting operation in a rare show of cross-agency cooperation.

Clay stepped around to the front of the Wall, his hand slipping under his suit coat as he checked his weapon.  His eyes glanced over the surrounding area, then he swore softly when he caught sight of a familiar figure in front of the Wall.  'Speak of the devil,' he mused silently.  However, it provided him with the perfect opportunity to give the appearance of being just another visitor to the Wall. 

"How is he?" he asked, coming up behind Mac, startling her.  She turned towards him, shocking Clay with her appearance.  He might have thought it was the light rain falling – she didn't have an umbrella – except for her red eyes.  He was surprised to see her there – and in uniform.  It must be some kind of show of respect.  But he would have thought she'd still be at the hospital.

Mac took a deep breath to calm herself before replying, "He's going to be fine."  She glanced around quickly, then looked back at Clay.  "What are you doing here?  You didn't come here to find me to check on Harm's condition.  There's any number of ways you could have found out how he's doing." 

She rubbed her cold hands together and Clay noted her missing engagement ring.  Too bad it had taken Rabb almost dying ….  "I'll just say this," he replied, his eyes meeting hers intently.  "Something's about to go down and I'm sure the case will cross your desk eventually.  Let's just say that this has the potential to eventually be bigger than Carlton."  She nodded at the reminder of the last espionage case she'd tried.

"I guess I should get back to the hospital," she said, reading in his eyes the message that it was a good idea to leave the area.  "I'm sure he's driving the doctors and nurses crazy."  She turned to leave, then stopped and offered a half smile to Clay.  "Thank you for asking."

Clay watched her leave, shaking his head.  Under other circumstances, he would have expected her to stick around, especially since the case probably would make it's way onto her desk.  Rabb's dunk in the Atlantic must have really torn her up, he realized.

"Get ready," he heard the whispered command in his ear piece.  Facing the panel Mac had just been standing in front of, his eyes easily found Harm, Sr.'s name while he waited for the command to move in.

Down at the end of the Wall, Wentworth noted Mac's departure and breathed a little easier.  So she had been just a visitor to the Wall.  Slipping a hand into his uniform jacket pocket, he pulled out a folded envelope and passed it to his companion.  "Here it is," he said. 

"The agreed upon amount will be wired to your account by the time the banks open tomorrow morning," his companion said, slipping the envelope into his jacket pocket without looking at it.  He'd been Wentworth's contact for close to five years and had yet to be disappointed with the information received. 

"Now!" Jessica said into her microphone as she turned and skated back towards the two spies, unzipping her fanny pack and pulling out a small handgun while other agents dropped what they were doing and closed in on the two men. 

Both men realized at the same time that they were surrounded, both of them remarkably calm about it.  Wentworth may have been paranoid before, but now that he was caught, a calm settled over him and Jessica noted a satisfied smile on his face as she snapped a pair of cuffs on him and Mirandized him.

"Do you understand these rights as I've read them to you?" she finished as she pushed Wentworth towards two FBI agents waiting to escort him to the prison van that was pulling up on Constitution Avenue as they spoke.

"Oh, I understand all right," Wentworth replied as his companion calmly informed the FBI agent cuffing him that he had diplomatic immunity.  "I understand that there are bigger fish than me out there.  You just don't know where to look."

As Wentworth was led aware, Jessica noted Clay watching him speculatively.  "You think he knows something about other spies?" she asked.

Clay shrugged as he replied, "All I know is that the last time I ignored a spy offering information, he had knowledge of a plot to assassinate Putin."

1150 ZULU
JAG HEADQUARTERS
FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA
TUESDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2001

"Good morning, Colonel," Harriet said as Mac entered the kitchen, a smile on her face.  She opened one of the overhead cabinets and retrieved her coffee mug as Harriet held out the carafe to her. 

"Good morning, Harriet," Mac answered cheerfully, pouring a cup of coffee, then placing the carafe back in the coffee maker.  She took a cautious sip of the hot liquid.

"So how was your holiday, Ma'am?" Harriet asked, sipping her own coffee. 

"It was …. nice," she replied, smiling softly at the memories of the quiet weekend she'd just enjoyed.  "It felt good to relax."

"Things have been kind of, um, crazy recently, haven't they?" Harriet suggested.  "And not just that awful situation – oh, I'm sorry, Ma'am.  I shouldn't have mentioned that.  I'm so sorry."

"Harriet, it's okay," Mac assured her, although not entirely convinced of that herself.  "Lieutenant Duren will get what he deserves and I'm dealing with all the rest.  It was good for me to think about something else for a few days."

"So where did you go, Ma'am?" Harriet asked.  Mac looked at her questioningly.  "I, um, called you on Sunday to see if you wanted to come over for dinner, spend some time with AJ."

"I went to Pennsylvania," Mac replied with a smile.

"So what's in Pennsylvania?" Harriet continued, slightly puzzled.

"There's lots of things up in Pennsylvania, Harriet," Mac answered nonchalantly.  Something perverse in her was enjoying keeping the details of her trip to herself.  "Gettysburg, Pittsburgh …. I hear Philadelphia is nice."

"Uh?"  None of those sounded like the kinds of things she thought Mac would be interested in.

Mac was saved from answering by Bud and Harm's arrival.  They were chatting amiably as they prepared their own cups of coffee, Harm glancing at Mac with a wink.  "Sir, I tried to call Sunday, thought you might want to watch some preseason football," Bud was saying as he emptied a packet of sugar into his drink. 

"Oh, I hopped in my Stearman," Harm explained, "flew up to my grandmother's for the weekend, spent some time with my brother.  He's been staying up there while he decides what he wants to do, stay here and go to school or, um, go back to Russia …." His voice trailed off, leaving none of them with any doubts that he wasn't thrilled with the prospect of the second option.  Sergei was on an extended leave from the Russian Army, courtesy of some maneuvering by Mark Falcon and Clay Webb, until he decided what he wanted to do.  Unnoticed by Bud and Harriet, Mac scooted just a little bit closer to him and patted his back.  He glanced at her with a half smile, grateful for the support.

"Where's your grandmother live, Sir?" Harriet asked, unaware that Harm had any family in the area.  She didn't know much about Harm's Stearman, but knew his grandmother probably didn't live too far away if he could reach her place in the small plane.

"Pennsylvania," Harm replied.  "She lives in a small town not far from Pittsburgh."

Harriet got a speculative gleam in her eye as she looked at Mac, who turned away from Harm and pretended to be busy looking through the donuts in the box on the counter.  "That's interesting, Sir," she remarked.  Harm, unaware of the previous discussion, gave her an questioning look, surprised by the odd comment.

Mac grabbed a donut out of the box, barely noticing what kind it was and brushed passed Harm on her way out of the kitchen.  " Commander, Lieutenants," she said as she made her escape.

She had barely settled behind her desk when Harm entered her office, closing the door behind him.  "What was that in there?" he asked, confused.  He realized from Mac's reaction and Harriet's satisfied smile that he had missed something, but what he wasn't sure.

"That was Harriet putting two and two together," she replied, looking over her donut with a hint of distaste.  She unknowingly picked up a lemon filled one, hardly one of her favorites.  She set the pastry down on a napkin with a sigh, glancing up at Harm.  "She tried to call me, too, wanted to ask me to come over for dinner.  She was telling me about it earlier and asked where I had gone for the holiday weekend.  I said I'd gone to Pennsylvania and …."

"And then I came in and said I went to Pennsylvania over the weekend as well," he concluded.  He studied her for a moment, then added, "Does it bother you – people knowing about, um, us?"

Mac was silent for a long moment, tearing her gaze away from his to study a stack of files to her left.  "I, um," she began haltingly. 

Harm cupped her chin in his hand and turned her head to face him.  "You're scared," he suggested, his tone sad.

"Scared of messing this up," she finally said.  She pulled away from him and stood, pacing nervously behind her desk.  She wasn't sure she could explain it to him when she was just beginning to understand it herself.  "We've been through so much, so much has happened.  I'm just not sure what to do, how to make this work while facing all the questions."

Harm respected her need for space and took a seat in front of her desk, letting her continue her pacing.  "You mean, because of Mic and Renee?" he asked.

"Among other things," she replied, plopping back down into her chair.  She sighed heavily, waving her hands.  "After Mic, um, left and while you were still recovering from your accident, I threw myself into my work, trying to distract myself.  But that doesn't mean that I didn't notice how conversations would suddenly stop when I'd walk into the room, how people who look at me when they thought I wasn't looking …. and this is sounding really dumb."  She ended with a nervous laugh.

"Not really," Harm countered, leaning forward in his chair, his arms resting on his knees.  "I noticed the same thing when I returned to duty, but does it really matter – what other people think, I mean?  Since when have either of us really cared what other people think about anything we do?"

"It's not that exactly …." she began, interrupted by a knock on her door.  Harm leaned back in his chair as she called out, "Enter."

The door opened to reveal Gunny.  "Sir, Ma'am, the Admiral would like to see you both ASAP," he said.

"Thank you, Gunny," Mac replied.  After Gunny left, she looked at Harm and asked, her tone almost pleading, "Can we finish this later?  I do want to talk to you about this."

"How about over dinner tonight?" he suggested without hesitation.  The time when they would dance around their feelings was past.  "My place?  1900?"

"I like the sound of that," she answered with a warm smile.  "I like the sound of that a lot."

"Take a seat.  In May, a Marine Colonel Phillip Wentworth was arrested on the National Mall after he handed a diskette to a Russian diplomat by the name of Major Nikolai Somanov," AJ read from a case file as Harm and Mac took seats in front of his desk.  "The diskette was found to contain technical and weapons specs for the new F-22 Raptor.  Rumor in intelligence circles is that there is a faction of hardliners in Russia that wants to try to duplicate some of our new weaponry coming down the pike so they can stage an overthrow of Putin's government, return to the days of Communism."

"It's always something in that country," Harm remarked.  "I'm very glad that my brother's over here and not there.  If only he'd stay here."

"Things have been rather unsettled in Russia since Communism fell," AJ reminded them.  "Anyway, Wentworth has decided after three months of being tight-lipped to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lighter sentence – meaning life imprisonment instead of a lethal injection.  He's offering to give us information on other spies and according to him, some of them are Navy or Marines.  Your job is to talk to Wentworth, get the information on any other Naval or Marine officers who may be spying on their country for the Russians and then prosecute them to the fullest extent of the UCMJ."  He handed Harm the case file.

Harm began looking through it, Mac leaning over the arm of her chair to study it with him.  "Impressive service record," Mac commented, "until just after he got back from an assignment at our embassy in Moscow.  Then the awards stopped and the reprimands began."

"In 1992," AJ explained, "about eight months after he returned from Moscow, his wife was diagnosed with cancer.  That's also about the time he allegedly began spying."

"It's classic," Harm remarked.  "The Russians probably used his wife's illness against him – offered a chance for him to earn a little extra money to help pay for his wife's medical treatments."

"That's what NCIS thinks," AJ concurred, "especially considering Colonel Wentworth went outside the military health system to help his wife – holistic treatments, experimental treatments, things that Champus wouldn't cover.  Didn't work – she died four years ago and from what has been pieced together so far, his spying activities increased after that."

"It's like he didn't care anymore," Mac said.  "Who's prosecuting Wentworth, Sir?"

"I was, until he decided to deal," AJ revealed.  At Harm and Mac's shocked expressions, he added with a heavy sigh, "It was the SecNav's idea.  Depending on how many military members Wentworth names, I may be assisting on the prosecution of some of the others, as well."

"Where's he being held, Sir?" Harm asked, looking up from the file.

"For security reasons, he's been sent to the Allenwood Federal Penitentiary in White Deer, Pennsylvania while awaiting disposition of his case," AJ said.  "No one wants a repeat of the incident with Commander Carlton."

Harm and Mac both nodded in understanding as they remembered how Mac's espionage trial a year early had come to an abrupt end with the assassination of the defendant.  Harm had only heard about it second hand, of course, having been in Chechnya at the time, but Mac had been just feet away from the car being used to transport Carlton when it had exploded with Carlton and two Marine guards inside.

"Tiner is making your travel arrangements now," AJ continued.  "Take tonight to familiarize yourselves with the case, fly up there tomorrow morning and stay up there until *I'm* satisfied that we've gotten all we can get out of Colonel Wentworth.  Dismissed."

Harm and Mac both stood, coming to attention.  "Aye, aye, Sir," they both said before turning and leaving his office, Harm pulling the door closed behind him.

"Looks like we've got a lot more to talk about tonight than just us," Mac whispered as they walked back to their offices, half expecting the case to get in the way of the other discussion.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Harm stopped suddenly and turned to face her.  "Sarah," he said, his voice just as soft as hers.  Mac had to force herself not to react to the sound of her name coming from his lips.  They were standing in a bullpen full of people, many of whom had taken note of everything Harm and Mac had done since his accident, since Mic and Renee's departures from their lives.  "We will finish the discussion we started in your office – tonight."

2255 ZULU
HARM'S APARTMENT

"Hmmm, something smells good," Mac commented as Harm opened the door to her.  She reached up, intending to give him a quick kiss, but as soon as she felt his arms wrap around her, all her good intentions fled.  She clutched handfuls of his shirt as she opened her mouth to his, losing herself to the firestorm his kiss was generating. 

When he pulled his mouth away from hers, she could have sworn the only thing holding her upright was his arms securely around her.  She rested her head against his chest, relaxing her grip on his shirt, smoothing the wrinkled fabric with her fingers.  "Are you okay?" he asked gently.

She looked up at him and smiled.  "Oh, yeah," she replied.  "I feel …. almost like a piece of my life that's been missing has fallen into place.  It's nice being with you like this."

"Just nice?" he echoed in a tone of mock hurt.

"Jerk," she retorted, playfully punching him in the stomach.  She pulled away from him and headed towards the kitchen.  "Now I hope that wonderful smell is our dinner."

Harm shook his head, chuckling to himself as he followed her.  "It would be," he replied.  "Lasagna and garlic bread."

"Sounds good," she said as she lifted herself onto one of the bar stools while Harm walked around the counter and opened the oven, checking their dinner.  "Harm, seriously – it is nice being here like this with you and not just because of …. I mean, it's been a long time since we've really had the opportunity to sit down with dinner and a case file."

"I know," he said, closing the oven and straightening up.  "I'm sorry about that."

"It's not your fault," she pointed out, "at least not completely, nor can we lay it all at Mic and Renee's doorstep.  There were a lot of things – if only we'd done this differently, if only we'd done that.  Remember the first time I had dinner here?"

Harm smiled at the memory.  "You came with a peace offering," he remembered.

"You really should have been the one coming to me," she said.  "You're the one who sandbagged me."

"You were the one who took it so personally," he countered.  They stared at each other then broke out laughing.  Almost as suddenly as it started, it stopped, their expressions falling

"And we got away from all that," Mac said sadly.  "If one of us had been able to reach out to the other like that after you returned from flying, maybe we would have been celebrating *our* engagement that night."

"It almost felt like you were punishing me for leaving," Harm admitted softly, glancing away, "and I didn't know how to climb that barrier.  Not to mention Brumby seemed to have taken the place I'd once held in your life."

"I guess I was," she said, "unconsciously anyway, trying to punish you and letting Brumby fill the void in my life that you'd left.  I was vulnerable after you left and …."

"He took advantage of that," Harm said.

Mac bit back her knee-jerk response to his statement.  Of course, he would see it that way.  Maybe he was entitled to.  "More like I let him take advantage," she explained.  "Why else I have let him put that ring on my finger?  I didn't really run to him, after the ferry, but I didn't run away from him either, despite my feeling that it was wrong.  You were the one I was running from and he was offering shelter from my feelings for you.  I couldn't really deal with your apparent rejection."

"And I couldn't deal with your apparent lack of feelings, after that scene at the airport," he said, "so I got more involved with Renee when we got back.  I guess we both got really good at hiding."

"Got something to drink?" Mac asked suddenly.  Harm looked at her with surprise, but went over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of sparkling cider, pouring each of them a glass.  He returned to the counter and handed one to her.  Maybe it was too much, too soon, he mused.  Maybe they needed to take baby steps towards each other.

Mac lifted her glass and suggested, "How about a toast?  To no more hiding – from each other, anyway."

Harm clinked his glass against hers and took a sip.  Now they were getting to the heart of what had happened this morning.  "But you do want to hide from everyone else?" he asked carefully.

"I don't know if I'd say that exactly," she replied, setting her glass down on the counter.  "But I want to be able to concentrate on us – not on what everyone is saying about us.  I want to be able to walk into a room and not have everyone's eyes on us.  You're right.  I've never really cared before what other people think, but I do now for some reason.  I was less than a day away from marrying another man just three months ago, then you took a plunge into the ocean and Mic and Renee were both gone right after that."

"Mac …. " Harm started, clasping one of her hands.

"I'm okay," she assured him.  "When I went back to work that Monday, when I should have been on my honeymoon, I heard someone – I'm not sure who – saying something to the effect that I would have gotten married if you hadn't gone down and they were wondering what was going on between us that the wedding had been cancelled and not just rescheduled."

"And that bothered you?"

"It bothers me that you had to almost die to stop me from making what probably would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life," she explained.  "I had all these unresolved feelings, but I was still running from you and it scares me to realize that if you hadn't crashed, I would have married him and probably eventually made all of us miserable.  I didn't want to admit that you were right about me needing you there to make it work.  Maybe there was a part of me hoping that you'd make a firm stand and tell me not to marry him."

"As hard as it would have been for me to sit there and watch you marry him," he said, "I think you know that I wouldn't have said anything.  It was your decision to make and if marrying Mic is what you wanted …."

"Yeah," Mac said in a whisper, bowing her head to stare down at the counter. 

After a moment, Harm cupped her chin and tilted her head up.  "You do understand why I couldn't say anything outright, don't you?"

Mac nodded slightly, circling her fingers around his wrist.  Then she smiled and asked, "So when's this dinner supposed to be ready?"

Harm laughed, the moment over.  There were still so many questions yet to be answered, but at least they had made a start.  It was a beginning.

After a companionable dinner spent talking about everything and nothing, they settled on the couch with their drinks and the case file, Harm reading from it as Mac made notes on a legal pad.  "Wentworth was arrested near the Vietnam Memorial on 27 May after passing a diskette to Major Nikolai Somanov, a *cultural attaché* to the Russian Embassy who got his start in the KGB."

"So Clay was right," Mac mused.

Harm looked up from the file.  "Right about what?" he asked.

Mac hesitated.  She had not told anyone about her visit to the Wall that morning.  Clay only knew because he'd seen her there and he'd never mentioned it again.  "I ran into Clay that morning," she explained, "at the Wall.  After we found out that you were going to be okay and Mic took back his ring, it felt like the walls of the hospital were closing in around me.  I needed to get away for a little bit and without realizing it, I found myself there, talking to, um, your father."

Harm quickly glanced through the file.  "Clay is listed as one of the agents in on the bust," he said.  "It was apparently a joint effort between the CIA, FBI and NCIS."

"Clay stopped to talk to me," she continued, "I guess while they were waiting for the op to go down.  He just said that something was about to go down and I'd probably find out all about it eventually, since the case would likely end up on my desk.  He also asked how you were doing."

"Hmmm," Harm murmured.  His eyes returned to the file and he flipped a page.  "Major Somanov joined the KGB around the same time as our friend Falcon.  We might want to give him a call, see if we can get some background on Somanov."

"I assume he was sent back to Russia after the arrest?" Mac asked.

"Currently cooling his heels in Lubyanka, awaiting execution as an enemy of the state," Harm said.  "Apparently, he was working both ends over there, doing his government job and working for the hardliners under the table.  After the assassination attempt last year, Putin has tried – with limited success – to crack down on former Communists who are trying to return the country to the days of Lenin.  The Russians are apparently willing to cooperate with our investigation to a certain extent and are keeping Somanov alive until Wentworth's case is resolved."

"Maybe hoping he'll have information on their spies as well as our own," she pointed out.  "Does it say anything in there about the other spies Wentworth allegedly has information about?"

"Not much," he replied, thumbing through more pages.  "He's been stringing investigators along for three months, only hinting about others' involvement until he got the deal he wanted.  He did tell them that he knew of five others – one Air Force, one Army, two Navy and another Marine.  He even hinted that one of them might be an elusive figure known in intel circles as Fokusnik.  That's a Russian word, isn't it?"

"It's Russian for 'magician'," Mac confirmed with a nod.

"Sounds like that's exactly what this guy is," he continued.  "There are some notes from Clay here.  Apparently 'Fokusnik' came to the CIA's attention almost two years ago.  He's supposed to be a master spy, *very* good at covering his tracks, lots of smoke and mirrors that has had the CIA running in circles trying to track him down.  All the CIA really has on him is records of a Swiss bank account with periodic deposits filtered through several banks, but originating from the central bank in Moscow.  When the CIA tried to find out the name on the Swiss account, the computer they were using to hack into the bank was infected with a virus."

"A Swiss bank account?" she mused, looking over the pages that Harm handed her.  "How'd they get that information?  That's like trying to get into Fort Knox."

"Anonymous tip," he replied.  "Which is why the CIA has been reluctant to believe that Fokusnik really exists, maybe something planted by a real spy to get the Agency running around in circles, at least until Wentworth started hinting about him.  This is the first time they've been able to approach the investigation from another angle besides trying to track down the bank account."

"We should give Clay a call, see if he can give us anything that isn't in here," she said, handing him back the pages.  "I have a feeling that this case is going to take up a lot of our time and attention."

"Hey, look at the bright side," Harm pointed out.  Mac gave him a questioning look.  "It will give us lots of time to spend together, working on rebuilding what we used to have.  Partners?"  He held out his hand to her, which she took without hesitation.

"Partners," she echoed with a laugh.  For the first time in what seemed like forever, she didn't have any doubts that they were that and more to each other.

1710 ZULU
USP ALLENWOOD
WHITE DEER, PENNSYLVANIA

Harm and Mac were seated at a table in a conference room, going over the notes they'd made the night before when two guards brought in Phillip Wentworth in an orange prison jumpsuit, his lawyer accompanying him.  They both stood, coming to attention.  Until the disposition of his case, Wentworth was still a Marine Colonel, disgraced though he was.  Mac gestured to a chair opposite them as they sat back down.  "I'm Colonel Mackenzie," she greeted him as he took his seat.  She and Harm had decided to let her take the lead, since Wentworth was a Marine.  "This is Commander Rabb.  We're here to ask you about information you claim to have on other military personnel spying for Russia."

"I'm R. Johnson Williams," Wentworth's attorney introduced himself.  "Let me lay down a few ground rules.  If I don't like the way this is going, if I think you're badgering my client in any way, then this interview is over."

"Let us point out a few things, Mr. Williams, " Mac said in her best no-nonsense, don't mess with this Marine tone.  "We are here because your client has expressed a willingness to barter information he claims to have on other spies in exchange for his life.  Our boss, the Navy's Judge Advocate General, is expecting a report from us and if *he's* not happy with what's in that report, then there is no deal and your client can look forward to his next stop being USP Terre Haute and Federal death row."

Before Williams could reply, Wentworth waved him off.  "It's alright, Williams," he said.  He looked over at Harm and Mac, both of whom were returning hard stares.  His eyes lingered on Mac for a moment before he told them, "I did agree.  I've seen you before, haven't I, Colonel Mackenzie?  You were visiting the Wall the morning I was arrested.  Your father, perhaps, or an older brother?"

Mac looked down at the papers in front of her for a moment, avoiding Harm's concerned gaze, before replying, "The father of a good friend, actually.  And this isn't about me, Colonel."

"But it is about family," he replied.  "That's why I got involved in this.  I assume you know about my wife.  She was ill, in so much pain, and the military doctors couldn't or wouldn't do anything to help.  You know how they are, I'm sure.  If it isn't on the approved list of treatments or drugs, then they won't do it.  So I began to look into other treatment options.  But options take money and I was just a Major at the time.  I'm sure you remember what kind of money a Major makes.  So when I was approached, there really wasn't much of a choice to make."

"There are always choices, Colonel," Harm said harshly.  "But this isn't about you.  This is about others you claim to have information on."

"Oh, I don't claim," Wentworth said, leaning back in his chair.  "Take Fokusnik, for instance."

"The CIA thinks that Fokusnik is a myth," Mac said.

"Because they've spent two years trying to chase him and ended up chasing their tails instead," he laughed.  "You know, this is about family to him, too."

"He needed money for a family problem?" Harm asked, writing something down on his pad.

"From what I understand, he has family ties to Russia," Wentworth clarified.  "This isn't about money to him.  It's about blood.  That makes him more dangerous than the average spy.  Blood is thicker than water and all that."

"He's of Russian descent?" Mac asked.  "An American military officer of Russian descent shouldn't be too hard to find, you would think.  What branch of service?"

"I'm not sure what branch of service," Wentworth replied.  "And that's what I assumed as well, that he's of Russian descent."

"What else?" Harm asked.

"Give it to them," Wentworth instructed his attorney.  Williams handed over a sealed manila envelope.  "These are the notes I've taken over the years on other spies I've come across during my years 'in the business', so to speak.  Covering my own ass, as it were.  I value my life and I knew going into this that it could cost me my life.  Look it over and come back tomorrow if you have any more questions."

Harm and Mac exchanged a look, realizing they probably weren't going to get much more out of Wentworth today.  They nodded and began packing their papers back in their briefcases.  "We will be in touch, Colonel," Mac said as Harm motioned for the guard in the corner of the room to let them out.

Once outside the conference room, Mac turned to Harm as they walked towards the prison's main entrance.  "I don't know how much value this is going to be," she said, "but we should give Clay a call and see if he can start tracking down military officers of Russian descent.  Even taking into account all four branches of service, there can't be that many, especially if we focus the search on 1^st or 2^nd generation Americans, those who might still have the strongest ties to the old country."

"Agreed," Harm said.  "We'll go over the rest of what he gave us tonight and see how much use it is.  So why don't we get checked into our hotel then find someplace where we can grab a late lunch and forget about the case for a few hours?"

"A lunch where we forget about the case for a while," she mused.  "You mean, like a date?"

Harm smiled and held out his hand to her as he held the main door open for her.  "Exactly like that," he replied.  "Would you like to go out on a lunch date with me, Sarah Mackenzie?"

"I'd like nothing more," she replied, her warm smile matching his as she placed her hand in his.

R. Johnson Williams waited until his client was escorted back to his cell, then pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number long memorized, glancing at his watch to make sure it was the right time to call.  "It's me," he said.  "Wentworth had his first meeting with the JAG officers – a Commander Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie."

"Perfect," replied the man on the other end of the line.  "Did he give them the information on Fokusnik?"

"And the others as well.  Just enough to whet their appetites and point them in the right direction," Williams confirmed, "and with just enough misdirection to make things interesting."

"Won't they be surprised when they eventually uncover the identity of Fokusnik," the man laughed.  Williams involuntarily shivered at the sound.  "I couldn't have planned this better myself.  Oh, wait.  I did plan this.  I imagine their next step will be to contact Clayton Webb."  He laughed again and Williams thanked God that he was on a phone and not in the same room with this man.  "Now we've got us a game."

Part 2