- A Navy petty officer dies of gunfire in a park in Washington, DC; Gibbs and company investigate; Hollis helps. The gang find an accessory for hire to a terrorist. An explosion kills six and injures 22, including Delilah. [Continued.]
- A Navy petty officer first-class dies of a single shot in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC; Gibbs and company investigate; Gibbs says that the weapon is 7 m.m. and maybe a high-powered sniper rifle; witnesses describe a strange event. Hollis Mann, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a lady from Gibbs's background, reappears; for the DoD she has investigated a contractor connected to the current case; she names one suspect (Erin, a woman software engineer); while on a stakeout for a second suspect, Gibbs and Mann find, rescue, and interview Erin, then arrest her. An explosion damages a hotel, routs a gala award-presentation dinner, kills six people, and injures 22, including Delilah, McGee's girlfriend, who undergoes surgery to repair her injuries from shrapnel. Tony and Ellie provide the location of the bad guys to Gibbs and Mann, who pursue; they zap two underlings, but the ringleader slips away. [To be continued.]—DocRushing
- A woman waits for a man in a park. When Danny comes, she's hugely relieved. But she's nervous and says they have to get out of there. They hear a noise in the air, possibly a helicopter, and as they turn to run a bullet cuts through the air and Danny falls down, dead. The woman runs to him, then runs away.
In the elevator up to work, Deliliah is annoyed with McGee when he's telling her he needs more notice for something. Ellie joins them, she's excited to meet Delilah, who she describes as "a big deal in the analyst world, ever since Operation Pin Drop." But they can't tell McGee what it is.
In the office, Tony is up to speed on McGee and Delilah's tiff because McGee butt-dailed him. Delilah is being awarded an impressive intelligence fellowship and wants him to go to a black tie gala tomorrow. McGee says he can't get time off, but Gibbs joins and is open to the idea.
Then he gets the call with the body of the week: a dead Marine in Rock Creek Park.
As they're leaving, Gibbs tells McGee not to use him as an excuse.
In the park, the victim is Daniel Coyne. He was killed by a sniper bullet from an acute angle -- close and high up.
Tony talks to a dog walker who is clearly crazy and says he saw a grey airship. Ellie has a sketch from other witnesses' descriptions. It's a Navy surveillance drone.
Back in the office, Ellie reports that Coyne was a drone operator at Pax River. She hands Tony a primer she wrote on the merits of drone warfare. Tony thinks he knows everything there is to know about computerized technology from SkyNet in the Terminator movies.
Down in the morgue, Duckie smells Shalimar perfume on the victim, meaning he was very near a woman with expensive taste. Duckie finds that Coyne had sex shortly before he died.
At Pax River, Lt. Commander Stone tells Ellie and Tony that none of their drones are missing. He calls himself a hall monitor given the inexperience of the drone operators, but says Coyne was the exception and had a bright future.
He was seeing Petty Officer First Class Patrice Gates, who thought they were getting married. But she's not the Shalimar-wearer. She didn't know Coyne was cheating and couldn't have modified the drone into a weapon.
McGee says only someone who worked for the defense contractor Rhinehart Carrion would have the know-how, but they're under investigation by the DOD. Deliliah arrives to meet with Vance and Gibbs.
In MTAC, Delilah describes a drone strike in Pakistan six months ago targeting Benham Parsa in retaliation for the murder of SecNav. Parsa escaped, but the mission was a success. Coyne was part of the kill chain, although his drone crashed. They think Parsa or his people may have recovered the crashed drone and smuggled it into the States. If so, they're not done attacking.
The DOD investigator arrives: it's Gibbs' ex-girlfriend Hollis Mann. She tells them Rhinehart's systems were hacked a month ago. They have one suspect: Erin Pace, a computer engineer who's gone missing. Her photo looks like the woman in the park.
Gibbs wants to take over the investigation but Hollis points out she was appointed by the Inspector General. She speed dials the Secretary of Defense, who tells them to work together.
Downstairs, McGee and Tony use the big screen to brief Ellie on the many loves of Gibbs. Diane, "Satan's spawn" the first ex-wife; Stephanie, ex-wife three. Ex two is a mystery. Hollis was supposed to be ex number four, but one day she just moved to Hawaii.
Gibbs comes down and requests info on Parsa.
Hollis and Gibbs join Abby in the lab, where the DOD has sent over things from Erin Pace's apartment. She wears Shalimar. Abby swabbed the OJ for DNA and got a hit for Yusef Ryder, a violent ex-con who recently converted to Islam.
Back upstairs, they report Yusef skipped parole two weeks ago and they have footage of him looting a gun store, including taking a high powered rifle. The van he was driving has been spotted a motel.
The team heads there.
In the car, Hollis tries to talk to Gibbs. She tells Gibbs she got married two years ago to a trauma surgeon.
They notice Yusef's van rocking and close in. When they open the doors, they find Erin tied up in back. Gibbs assures her she's safe.
"I'm not safe, none of us are," she says.
Back at NCIS, Erin ID's Yusef as one of the three or more Pakistani men who kidnapped her. One spoke almost proper British English, and was polite. Something strikes Ellie and she starts researching.
She refused to modify their drone until they showed her a feed of her husband asleep in bed in Mali, where he works for an NGO, then she did what they asked.
She wasn't having an affair with Coyne, she just worked with him. They forced her to get Coyne to the park as a test run. She thinks someone important is next, revenge for an attack in Pakistan. She heard the word "acrobat."
Hollis knows it as a secret service code name. Erin IDs a photo Ellie shows her: The polite man is Benham Parsa.
Gibbs and Ellie brief Vance on the fact Parsa is in the country. The Secretary of Defense is meeting with several world leaders tomorrow, Hollis is already working to relocate it. Vance tells them to track the drone.
McGee runs into Delilah in the hall. She bought him a tux. She understands that with Parsa in the country he can't come to the gala, but she doesn't understand why he was so resistant in the first place.
Back in the office, Ellie is stumped over what Parsa is really up to, saying he only plans large scale attacks. They realize Parsa can't use military satellites to control the drone, so he must be nearby. McGee starts tracking.
Later, Hollis joins Gibbs in his basement. She brought bourbon and wants to apologize. She tells him she could tell he wasn't ready to let go of his past so she made an executive decision and left. "You should have just asked," he says.
She turns to leave, but he invites her to stay and pours her a drink.
In the lab, Abby and McGee scan low frequency radio providers.
Abby grills McGee on why he's being dumb about Delilah. He says he needs space, but she says he's just scared of getting hurt and Delilah is the best thing that's happened to him in a long time.
They get a hit on the emergency broadcast tower, broadcasting a second carrier wave. McGee traces it to a storage building.
On site, the team sees Yusef loading up his truck. Tony steps out and shouts NCIS. Yusef turns to fire at him, with Ellie right behind him. Then Yusef dives back into the warehouse. Ellie fires and the whole building explodes.
Down in the NCIS garage, Ellie is kicking herself for blowing up the building and the drone. But, going through the wreckage, Abby finds evidence of a bomb. Yusef blew himself up.
Abby has sorted things into bomb components, drone parts, and miscellaneous. She and Ellie start going through them.
McGee comes down in his tux. With the immediate threat over, he's going to the gala. When he leaves, Abby finds parts that don't make sense.
She and Ellie report to Gibbs, the parts are spare parts and they were supposed to explode. The drone is still out there.
Down in the morgue, Duckie examines Yusef's body and finds tattoos for multiple prison gangs. Yusef went with whoever could protect him, not the type to martyr himself for a cause. So Yusef didn't kill himself, Benham Parsa detonated the bomb.
Ellie and Tony go back at Erin. They've looked at her correspondence and finances. They know she hasn't spoken to or corresponded with her husband in the 11 months he's been gone. He left her saddled with debt from gambling. And they found $5 million in a living trust set up for her sister, who's in a care facility. Parsa didn't threaten her, he bribed her.
They call her a terrorist and tell her she'll spend 50 years in jail. She changes her tune and starts bragging about the drones she helps build.
Ellie briefs Gibbs. The drone is loaded with 100 pounds of C4, but Erin doesn't know the target. Ellie knows Parsa's targets are symbolic.
They realize he's targeting the gala McGee is attending, where half the intelligence community is gathered.
They call McGee at the gala. He steps outside to take the call and Delilah goes in.
Tony tells him to get everyone out, but McGee looks up and it's too late.
Gibbs gets a call with the source of the signal where they believe Parsa is. He and Hollis go to the building and find three men inside. They shoot two but the third runs. He makes it to the street. Gibbs fires but an SUV pulls up and the third man, Parsa, gets in and gets away.
Back at NCIS, Tony reports there are four dead at the hotel and a few dozen wounded including Delilah, who's in surgery.
Gibbs is focused on finding Parsa. He grabs all the intel and lays it out on the floor for Ellie to go over. "Get the son of a bitch," Gibbs says.
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