AN: This is the last chapter of this story. I hope you all enjoyed it.
There was a sense of anticipation in the air at the Hoover Building. Everyone at the FBI now knew about the hacker and everyone wanted him to be caught. There was a lot going on at the FBI and everyone knew that if any confidential files got into the wrong hands, there would be severe consequences for everyone involved.
Throughout the week, Jethro wouldn't let McGee out of his sight so Tim was forced to bring him to the FBI every day. Fornell wasn't too happy about it. Everyday Jethro would glare at him as if accusing him of stealing McGee still. Tim had apologized about Jethro but there wasn't much that he could do about it. If Jethro wouldn't let him out of his sight, them Tim would just have to bring him to the FBI so he could get his work done.
At the end of the week, McGee had tracked the guy down and the FBI was getting ready to go after him. The man had gone through almost thirty proxy sites to keep the FBI from tracking him but he hadn't anticipated McGee. There was nothing that would keep McGee from getting to him.
"Agent Fornell, I've tracked the man to a hotel in Woodbridge. It looks like the attempts to hack into the FBI all came from that site so I think the hacker might be an employee at the hotel. Four weeks is a long time for someone to live at a hotel. We'll have to cross reference employee timesheet to the times where the hacker tried to enter the FBI database to find the man but otherwise he's all but caught."
McGee looked ready to pass out. He had been at the FBI building almost sixteen hours a day to track down the hacker. He had looked through all the logs that the FBI kept to determine which attempts had been made by the same hacker and which hadn't. He had also tried to determine a pattern to see if there were specific times which the hacker was more likely to take a crack at the FBI database. In the end, nine of the dozen attacks the FBI had singled out were accredited to the Woodbridge hacker and an additional five more from previous weeks that the FBI had not looked at. There was also two more attempts by him while McGee was there. This was one of the reasons why he had tracked him down so quickly. McGee had hopped on the trail while it was still active and had pinpointed him in Woodbridge in no time at all.
"Ok, McGee, we got it from here. Are all the security updates done as well?"
"Yes. Any attempts to get into the FBI database will lead to the hacker getting kicked out. If there are multiple attempts by the same person on the same machine within a year, they will get a bug that will help you track them down. I've already trained some of the people down at cyber crimes how to track down the hacker once there is a ping in the system."
Fornell looked happy that there wouldn't be any hackers getting close enough to their files to cause any trouble. The fact that they could track down hackers who had tried multiple times to get into the system was an added bonus.
"Thank you for all your assistance in this matter." Fornell said while shaking McGee's hand. He glanced down at Jethro and noticed the stare he was once again getting. He kneeled down so that he was face to face with Jethro and said, "I told you that this would only take a week. He's all yours again."
Jethro gave Fornell a bark and then licked him in the face.
"Looks like Jethro likes you now." McGee was amused by how Jethro and Fornell had treated each other in the past two weeks. Jethro's protectiveness had him suspicious of Fornell and until Forall had proved himself to be trustworthy, Jethro had kept staring at him. Now that Tim was done at the FBI in the promised week, Jethro was happy.
"Well I like you too." Fornell told the dog. He then stood up to address McGee, "Well at least he shows his respect of people better than your boss."
"And just how should I show my respect, Tobias?" Gibbs glared at him.
Fornell jumped up and turned around. "What happened to the standard greeting? And what are you doing here?"
"Nothing wrong with the standard hello. Came to pick up my agent. Problem with that?" Gibbs was hiding a smirk at Fornell's reaction.
"Thanks, Boss. How did you know I came in on the metro today?" Tim was almost as surprised as Fornell seeing his boss at FBI headquarters. However, after all his years of working under him, his Gibbs radar was fine tuned within feet. That didn't mean that he knew the reason why Gibbs was there though.
"Tony told me your car went into the shop last weekend. Come on, let's get you two home. See you later Fornell." Gibbs turned away while Fornell addressed Tim.
"Gibbs. Goodbye, Agent McGee. Thanks for all your help this week."
"You're welcome. Goodbye and enjoy your weekend." Tim replied and then turned away to leav with Gibbs and Jethro.
Jethro had walked to Gibbs when Fornell had stood and was now being petted by Gibbs while they waited for Tim.
Fornell grimaced at the statement. He would need to weekend to recover from the week of Jethro glares. The dog he could handle now that he liked him. Gibbs on the other hand was unimaginable. Fornell would probably never find out when his glares would stop being intimidating. But now that McGee was back in the hands of NCIS, he hoped he would be getting them less.
"At least both Jethro and Gibbs are happy now. Until the next time I need Tim." Fornell shook his head and went to get an aspirin for his headache. He hoped it would be a while before he needed anyone from Team Gibbs again. Gibbs was scary when he didn't have his way.
Finis.