"Does this vest make me look bulky?"

"Eva."

"It's just a question."

"Commander Wilkins will have you out to the Chimera by nightfall." Commander Skinner walks towards us with Gibbs.

"Chimera's not listed in the Navy fleet." Gibbs mentions.

"It's not on the books." He shakes his head. "The Chimera's a highly sophisticated, top-secret research vessel."

"Researching what?"

"That's need-to-know. And you don't."

"That's the, uh, top-secret part, McGee."

"Go in. . .get the body. . .and come back out." His pace slows near me before quickening. "Take witness statements, do whatever you need to do. But don't ask anything beyond your pay-level."

And he leaves us to get ready for the flight to the black ship.

On the aircraft, once we near the vessel, Wilkins attempts to make contact with the captain on board — only there's no response.

So one by one, we leap off the aircraft and onto the ship.

"Where's the welcoming committee?"

"The deck lights are on."

"Nobody's home."

"God, this is creepy. We stumbled onto a freaking ghost ship."

"Agent Gibbs, we have reserve fuel. We need to know if you're staying, sir."

"We're staying."

All cabins and hallways are empty, no one or nothing to be found. Much to my dislike, we split into three groups: Ducky with Gibbs, McGee with Ziva, and me with Tony.

"Welcome aboard the U.S.N.S. Houdini." Tony jokes in a low tone.

"Would you quit it?" I smack his shoulder. "I can't be the only one who's scared shitless by this whole black ship thing."

I pick up a note on the bottom bunk.

          Dear Mary Beth,

                    Good news. Overheard the captain say they had a good dive last night. If they found what they were looking for, we could be heading home any day. I can't tell you much about the mission, but

"But?"

"That's all. It stops there."

The six of us meet again when McGee finds a room from across the bathroom — poor guy's built with awful motion sickness.

"What are they researching, Duck?"

"Something to do with rats, if I were to guess from these empty cages."

"Skinner seemed pretty paranoid. Guessing the mission wasn't purely humanitarian."

"I doubt it's even human." The aging doctor scans the medical equipment. "Thermosalinographs, fluorometer, carbon analyzer. . .whatever it is, it's not visible to the naked eye."

From above, booming footsteps echo through the empty ship, and I instinctively move closer to Tony's side.

"We're going to die."

"It could be the metal of the ship contracting in the cool of the evening." McGee assures calmly, to which Gibbs flashes a look. "Or not."

"Sounded as if it was coming from the cargo hold above us." Tony glances up at the ceiling.

"Duck, you're with me." Gibbs leads him out of the room. "You four check out the cargo hold."

Ziva and I are the only ones to believe there's someone — or something — aboard the ship, but we make it to the cafeteria before crossing paths with whatever it is.

A bloody footprint leads to a bagged body in the refrigerator, remnants of blood and vomit over his mouth. The man's Dr. Satoshi Takada, a marine biologist onboard.

Ducky's initial diagnosis had been asphyxiation, but it's later confirmed to be viral hemorrhagic fever. . .which we're all exposed to.

"We've been through almost every room on this ship." Ziva runs a finger under the blueprints of the ship.

"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."

"Ziva and I can search the ship again."

Gibbs hands me the radio. "Watch your sixes and keep contact."

"You sound like the father I never had."

We make it back to the cargo hold, strolling through the rows of stacked boxes with our guns safely in our pockets.

"Has anything. . .changed between you and Tony?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

Being a trained N.C.I.S. agent means I can lie smoothly whenever needed, and the other party doesn't know.

Except when you're dealing with a Mossad agent.

"How gullible do you think I —"

Suddenly, she runs off in the other direction. I follow behind her and turn the sharp corners so as to not crash into anything.

She stops at an intersection of hallways, looking amongst her four options. I stop beside her in the center.

"Did you see that?"

"I didn't see anything."

"Someone, something was running." She pants heavily. "Eva, I swear there was something there. It ran down the passageway, it made a right here, and then it. . .it disappeared."

"Hey, hey, I believe you, Ziva." I glance over her shoulder. "There's a room named biohazard over there."

"Call McGee. He should be able to crack it. . .before we're dead."

The lights flicker momentarily before melting to pitch black. We snap our flashlights on and head towards the electrical room.

"It should be right. . .here."

She unlocks the door, and someone runs out and pushes her against the wall before making a sprint for it. I jump onto his back and tackle him to the ground, hovering the light over his face.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Ziva radios the guys, briefly informing them of the incident that occured mere minutes ago. Tony shackles the man — who turns out to be the cook of the crew — to a rail in the main cargo hold while Gibbs interrogates him. Back near the biohazard room, McGee works to fix the power and unlock the cyber-locked door.

"The good news is, I've confirmed beyond a doubt that Takada did indeed die of hemorrhagic fever." Ducky begins. "However, the virus was injected into him. It was not airborne."

"So Tony's been having phantom symptoms this entire time?" My left brow lifts in question.

"The bottom line is there was no outbreak on the ship. He was injected without knowing it." He mentions eerily.

"So Takada was murdered." Ziva determines from the in depth information. "But for what reason?"

"To scare everyone off the ship."

"Again, why?"

"What's so valuable on this ship that someone would kill for it?"

The lights magically switch back on, and Tony calls from the top deck after witnessing someone running away.

In this case, he wasn't hallucinating.

Lieutenant Ferris, the communications officer who failed to communicate that his crewmates abandoned ship, has been wasting our time this whole journey.

An assault ship makes its way towards the Chimera with unknown identification, origin, and reason. Skylight breaks through, and morning arrives as quickly as the vessel.

While the attackers aboard the ship, we take hostage of their own and escape.

"Ducky, how long before Ferris wakes up?"

"A couple of hours." He wipes beads of sweat off his temple. "Although, it'll take him considerably longer to wipe off the face blood."

"How's you disable the ship, McGee? Spew all over the engine?" Tony nudges the young agent's shoulder.

"Ship's still able to sail in one big circle." McGee laughs aloud.

"Why were those Russian agents onboard?" I shout over the loud engine of the motorboat.

"McGee?"

He props open the case found in the biohazard room.

"Russian nuclear warhead?"

"The ghost of Soviet Project K629." Gibbs confirms. "Looks like you were right, Ziva. There was a ghost with us."

A missile soars through the air before hitting the Chimera, the entire vessel exploding into debris and flames.

"Once a black ship, always a black ship."