- An injured Navy lieutenant commits suicide; Gibbs and company investigate; three people kidnap Ducky, Palmer, and the body, and the abductors demand an improvised autopsy. The gang find the missing body, teammates, answers, and bad actors.
- In Richmond, Virginia, an injured Navy lieutenant grabs a jug of caustic drain cleaner, chugs it, and drops dead; Gibbs and company investigate; Tony soon learns about some of the recent behavior of the victim. While Ducky and Palmer head back toward Washington, DC, in their van, one tire blows out; three people detain them, take them to a secluded cabin, and require Ducky to perform an improvised autopsy there. Meanwhile Abby learns about the location and behavior of the victim just before he died, and the team trace the van. Tony learns about the peculiar circumstances of the victim, and Abby confirms that things do not jibe; she also traces some of his activities; she further deduces who roughed up the vic before he died; the gang find the assailant, and he tells Gibbs why. The gang follow Duck and Palmer into a forest, find one dead bad guy, then find the dynamic duo and seize the other bad guy. The bad woman takes Palmer's bait, then the team grab her as expected.—DocRushing
- Plumbers show up at a suburban house when they see a badly wounded man stumbling down the street, holding his stomach. He rummages through their truck and chugs the drain cleaner then froths at the mouth and keels over.
Back at NCIS, Palmer counts out $200 cash for McGee. They try to hide their transaction from Ziva and Tony. McGee gets busted for having a ticket connection and Tony feels left out.
Gibbs announces the dead body of the week: a dead officer in Richmond, two hours away.
At the scene, the victim is Lt. Gordon Roth. He was chased by police for running a stop sign before appearing on the street. He's been shot in the stomach and has bloody and broken knuckles, but died from the drain cleaner. Palmer and Duckie load the body in the van. Duckie plans to take the back roads to avoid the forecast snow.
An unseen person in a black SUV watches them leave and gets orders from a woman on the phone not to lose them. The SUV follows the coroner's van.
Back at NCIS, they learn Roth was sent to work in the Office of Naval Research after suffering hearing loss in Iraq and was an expert on high end military encryption, despite not having a degree.
Duckie drives while Palmer does a crossword on his laptop. Their van won't go above 50 mph. One of their tires blows out, which Palmer finds weird since he just changed it.
McGee explains to Tony that his cousin works for a concert promoter and occasionally gets him tickets. He didn't tell Tony because he knew he'd take advantage of it. They meet with Commander Lisa Cleveland, Roth's CO, who says he was very stable.
Roth oversaw the Navy's highly classified materials, the kind people might kill for.
On the side of a country road, Palmer finishes changing the tire, which Duckie examines with a magnifying glass to find the blowout. He finds a bullet.
A woman pulls up in a Mercedes and opens the back of the van while her goon holds a gun on Duckie and Palmer. She searches Roth's body, then announces "it" isn't there. They switch to plan B, which involves kidnapping Palmer and Duckie.
Gibbs goes down to the morgue for an update and is surprised to find Duckie isn't there.
Meanwhile, the ME's van pulls up to a cabin in the woods. There's a blood stain on the floor. They clap Duckie and Palmer in leg irons. The woman wants Duckie to conduct his autopsy in the cabin. She sends her men Lincoln and Marcus back to the scene to look for "it."
Gibbs visits Abby, who has the results from Roth's car and his GPS-enabled camera, which puts him in a park taking pictures before he died. She calls Duckie then Palmer and both their phones are off. She tries to trace Palmer's phone, but the error code tells her his battery has been removed.
Back upstairs, they know Palmer called the motor pool to report the flat. McGee traces the location of the call and pulls up surveillance footage, which shows the SUV trailing the van.
Duckie and Palmer cut open Roth in the cabin. Roth had a hearing aid, which Duckie can find no physiological need for. Duckie suggests the shooter was about 6 feet tall and skin cells under his nails show the shooter was white. Duckie opens Roth's stomach, sending their captors outside for fresh air. Duckie tries to come up with a plan to get free.
Back at NCIS, they have found the shot out tire on the side of the road and footprints and tire tracks. Tony reports Roth had an off shore bank account, funded by Cuban sources, a violation of Navy code. Old documents show that Roth's signature changed at some point. Lt. Roth is not Lt. Roth.
In the cabin, Palmer uses not-Roth's stomach acid to eat through his leg irons while Duckie rewires his hearing aid to use as a microphone to listen to their captors outside. Roth was supposed to bring them a package and they plan to kill Duckie and Palmer when they're done with the autopsy.
Abby runs facial recognition and confirms from Roth's high school photo that the victim isn't Roth. The imposter switched in 10 years ago on his Naval induction day, after he'd passed security clearances.
Roth's been using his CO's access codes to download classified files once a month. They think he's a mole.
Abby has ID'd Lt. Michael Dunkel's blood at the crime scene.
Back at the cabin at night, Duckie reviews the plan with Palmer.
With their captors back in the room, they explain that Roth was shot from his own gun during the course of a struggle. They suggest his attacker's prints might be on his gun. The woman gives her goons the OK to kill Duckie and Palmer.
Duckie suggests they held back information to ensure their safety.
The woman catches Palmer eyeing a teapot on the stove and Duckie is chagrined. She finds a gym locker key that they tell her Roth swallowed. Duckie tries to keep Palmer from talking, but he nervously babbles about finding the key and methane gas and a reaction with drain cleaner.
Duckie admits they're stalling -- waiting for the cigarette to ignite the gauze in the oven.
Duckie and Palmer back away and the oven explodes, catching Marcus on fire. The cabin fills with smoke as the woman and Lincoln struggle to put out the flames. They realize Marcus is dead and Palmer and Duckie are gone.
In interrogation, Dunkel denies knowing Roth, even though he has a giant shiner. After some Gibbs yelling, Dunkel admits Roth was sleeping with his wife, Commander Lisa Cleveland.
He confronted Roth, but Roth pulled a gun. They struggled, the gun went off and Dunkel ran. He denies knowing about anything else.
Duckie and Palmer run through the woods, heading for the highway.
At NCIS, they confirm Roth's affair with Cleveland, whom he was sleeping with for her access codes. Roth had to kill himself so his operation wouldn't be compromised if he was captured. They think Roth's handlers took the body and Duckie and Palmer.
In the woods in the middle of the night, Duckie and Palmer hear gunshots. They left a message for Gibbs at the cabin, but don't know when he'll find it. Palmer snagged one of their guns in the confusion.
At NCIS, McGee gets a report of the SUV at a national forest, where people asked to rent the most remote cabin two weeks ago. They run the plates and find it's registered to a shell company that uses the same bank that funded Roth's offshore account.
In the woods, Duckie twists his ankle on a rock. They hear another gunshot. Duckie tells Palmer to leave him.
Gibbs and the team pull into the park in the pitch dark. They find the cabin and R9 carved into Roth's foot: Rule 9, Never go anywhere without a knife. They see a scalpel stuck in a mounted animal head and head out in the direction it's pointing.
In the dark, Duckie calls out for Palmer. Lincoln finds him and holds a gun on him, telling him to call for Palmer.
Suddenly Palmer busts out of the woods and empties his gun into Lincoln, who drops. Jimmy's reeling from the shock when Lincoln gets to his feet and holds his gun on them. He's about to fire when Gibbs and the team find them.
Another day, the woman goes to a gym and opens a locker. She finds a jersey with Palmer's name on it. The NCIS team finds her.
They have the USB Roth put in a sewer drain, they didn't mention the sewage they found under his nails. The key and locker belong to Palmer. "You've been played," Duckie announces.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content