Trama

Gibbs and McGee are shot down in a Naval helicopter over remote parts of Russia while on a mission to escort an NCIS computer geek safely home. Meanwhile, the gang at home anxiously work to help bring them all home safely.

Gibbs is surprised that he must pick a man, Mcgee, to escort brilliant ITC colleague Kevin Hussein, who repatriates his uncle, a professor who died in Moskow. Despite a warning from the Russian government, late terror brain Ari Haswari's national 'fan club president' Yiri mobilizes a team to shoot down the US helicopter on its way to Finland. Suspicious about the Russian lack of cooperation or even disclosure, the home team discovers that the corpse was already repatriated, perform an autopsy and find a memory device inside. Before Gibbs can warn Abby, as Kevin came clean, it spreads a virus despite normally sufficient precautions. Gibbs' party must fight and run for their lives to reach Finland.—KGF Vissers

Vance informs Gibbs that one of their techs who went to Russia to get his late uncle's body. It seems like he thought someone was following him so he went to the embassy. Someone has to go get him. So he sends Gibbs, and brings McGee with him. They're on their way back in a helicopter when they're shot down. They're 20 kilometers from the border and the crew are dead or injured, so they wait. Vance tries to find out who shot them down and locate them. Gibbs thinks there's more to the tech's trip than he mentioned.—rcs0411@yahoo.com

Moscow, Russia

A Russian counsel Anton meets with an international mercenary named Sergei Mishnev, who has funded many terrorists over the years including Ziva David's late brother Ari Haswari, warning Sergei off going after NCIS. He knows there's an NCIS agent in town and Sergei's people have been following him. Sergei assures Anton he won't implicate Russia, his revenge is purely personal.

Back at NCIS, Director Vance mentions the new systems admin Kevin Hussein to Gibbs. Kevin went back to Russia last week to visit a sick uncle, who died yesterday. Kevin has the feeling he's been followed. He's holed up at the US Embassy and needs an escort home, given his high security value.

McGee and Tony both try to get out of the job. Ellie is willing, but only a senior agent can go. McGee loses rock paper scissors and is off to Moscow.

At the US Embassy, Kevin is relieved to see friendly faces.

They fly him out on a Naval airplane, with permission from the Russians. It's piloted by Lt. Commander Banks and Lt. Hagan.

After they've been flying for awhile, the pilots notice they've been targeted by a surface-to-air missile. It hits the tail and they go into a tailspin. The pilots tell everyone to brace for impact.

Back in DC, Tony, Ellie and Vance listen to the radio transmission in MTAC. Twelve minutes after the crash and they haven't picked up a distress beacon.

Gibbs comes to by the wreckage to see a wolf growling at him. His gun was knocked away. He's scaring the animal off with a stick when McGee comes to his rescue firing.

They hear Banks moaning in the front seat. She has a fractured rib and likely punctured lung. The copilot and crewman are dead. Kevin stumbles out of the woods, apparently OK.

In MTAC, Vance and Tony conference with Anton, who assures them Russia had nothing to do with it. He offers to send search planes.

Out in the woods 12 miles (20 klicks) from Finland, they try to patch up Bank and fix the radio. Gibbs thinks Kevin knows something about who might have shot them down, but he pleads ignorance. They hear someone coming. Banks tries to tell Gibbs to leave her, but he'll consider no such thing.

Back at NCIS, Abby thinks she has an idea related to the missile. Vance asks Ducky to brief Kevin's family. They're not happy about having to let Russia take the lead on the search, for diplomatic reasons.

Sergei and his men surround the wreckage and find Banks, who tells them nothing. When they see blood on a tree branch nearby, they head off in that direction. Sergei leaves one man behind, but tells him to let Banks bleed to death.

Down in the lab, Abby replays the audio of the missile hitting the helicopter tail. She's in a high state of Abby agitation. Ellie tells Abby the statistics of surviving a helicopter crash are actually pretty good, near 2 out of 3.

Abby played the audio of the missile for her Marine anti-aircraft gunner friend in Kuwait. He identified it as a 9K 32 Strella 2 surface to air missile. A huge cache of Strella 2s were stolen from Libyans two years ago and the suspects were Russian mercenaries.

Back at the crash site, the mercenary is getting creepy on Banks and Gibbs comes out of the woods and kills him quietly. Gibbs goes back to Kevin, demanding to know what info he has.

Banks it looking worse by the minute.

At NCIS, Ducky comes from talking to Kevin's sister, who lives in Buffalo and knew nothing about her brother's trip to Russia or her uncle's passing. Ducky called the Embassy and changed the shipment of Kevin's uncle's body from a funeral home near Kevin's house to his own morgue. Palmer is on the way to the airport to pick it up.

At the crash site, Gibbs sits with Banks the tries to keep her talking, but she slips away. When Sergei radios his dead mercenary, Gibbs, McGee and Kevin start packing up to trek to Finland. McGee thinks he might be able to get a signal with the merc's sat phone if the reach higher ground.

Down in the morgue over Edgar Hussein's body, they are all surprised to find two bullet wounds in the body. The x-rays reveal a micro SD card in his chest.

Out in the woods, Gibbs withholds water from Kevin until he talks. He tells them about being approached by Sergei for help getting something that's "kind of a weapon." He agreed to help with his uncle's medical bills for cancer. But then he backed out of the deal and when he went to visit his uncle, he found him shot to death. Kevin explains the weapon is in his uncle -- a computer virus that could de-activate defense systems. Worse, it's a prototype and he's the only one who can deactivate it. But he thinks there's no risk because he's the only one who can sign for his uncle's body.

McGee and Gibbs know better and expect Abby has it already.

She does. But she's plugging it into an isolate laptop inside a cage to protect its signal from the rest of their system. There are two folders, one with a shark and one with a kitten. She debates which to click, first building a virus scanner and firewall. Then she clicks on the kitty. The virus blows through her firewall and spreads through the lab.

McGee gets a signal on a hill and reaches Tony. They warn them not to plug in the disk, but it's too late. Gibbs tells them they're being pursued and McGee starts to give their coordinates when the mercenaries start firing. They hit the satellite phone and Kevin's leg.

With the coordinates, Vance OKs Tony heading out to find them. While McGee patches up Kevin, Gibbs takes sniper aim at an exposed mercenary. Gibbs hits him and they run.

Late at night, they stop to build a fire. Without warning him, McGee puts a stick in Kevin's mouth for him to bite down on and Gibbs heats a knife in the fire and then uses the broad side of the blade to cauterize Kevin's wound. Then Gibbs puts branches on the fire to make smoke and attract the mercenaries.

Back in the NCIS lab, Abby does magic computer stuff to try to slow down the virus.

In the woods, Sergei and his men close in on the position of the fire. They open fire on the three blankets left as decoys.

Back at the road, Gibbs tosses a grenade under Sergei's SUV, exploding it. Gibbs, McGee and Kevin continue toward Finland on foot.

At NCIS, Ellie husband has hooked her up with the NSA satellite feed of Russia. She punches in the coordinates of the crash and as they pan west, they see the exploded SUV and three men pursuing three other men, one of whom is wounded.

In the woods, Gibbs tells McGee and Kevin to keep going while he stays back to slow the mercenaries. Duckie, Ellie and Vance see him split off on the satellite. In the dark, Gibbs easily picks off two mercenaries with his sniper rifle. Then when that is out, he switches to a handgun.

He finds Sergei on the road and is preparing to fire at him from a distance when a truck pulls up and Tony jumps out, telling him to get in. When Sergei raises his gun to fire, Gibbs fires first, hitting him. The truck drives off, leaving Sergei lying by the side of the road. McGee and Kevin are in it.

Back in Gibbs' basement, Vance drops by. It will take weeks for Abby to clean up the virus and Kevin is looking at serious jail time.

Vance tells Gibbs about Sergei's connection to Ari and his vendetta against NCIS. Worse, their intel indicates that Sergei survived. Vance expects he'll be coming for NCIS.

"Not if we find him first," Gibbs says.