- A bomb explodes in a Navy Lieutenant's apartment, killing his unfortunate building manager. The team must find the missing Lieutenant and identify the bomber minus McGee, who has lost his credentials.
- A bomb explodes in the apartment of a Navy lieutenant (junior grade), Keith, while he's not at home; the building manager dies; Gibbs and company investigate. Keith washed out of flight training and now serves at the Pentagon. Gibbs talks with Keith's CO; Abby says that Keith built the bomb. McGoo has a problem, but Vance takes care of it in two different ways. Vera, a retiring agent and an interesting person, works her last two weeks with the Gibbs gang. Tony and Vera check out the source of the explosive, who refers them to a local contractor, who reacts in a squirrelly way, but who reveals an important fact. Abby identifies a plastic blob; Tony and McGee elaborate; Tony traces Keith to an airport. Everyone shifts into overdrive to find Keith; McGeek proposes a technique, and Abby helps to implement it; soon the team and others track Keith in a rented private light aircraft. Gibbs speaks with Keith, who changes his plan and ends his flight.—DocRushing
- A Navy dress uniform hangs from a chair in an empty apartment. The room is completely wired to blow, with a trip switch on the door.
The occupant's neighbor comes by to leave him a registered letter and the building manager offers to put it in his apartment. He opens the door, triggers the bomb and is blasted to smithereens.
At NCIS, Tony chafes to see large Murray at Ziva's desk, although Murray points out it's not Ziva's anymore. He's scrubbing her hard drive. He finds an old photo of Tony, which Tony takes back.
McGee comes in in a huff. He can't find his badge and ID. Tony suggests he wait to report the loss in case it turns up, even though waiting is a violation of the rules.
Gibbs come in with the body of the week: the building manager.
At the crime scene, the cop guarding the tape is actually checking IDs. Tony thinks McGee is screwed, but he loads up his arms, sticks a pad in his mouth and mumbles his way past.
In the charred apartment, Palmer and Duckie are loading up the building manager when Palmer gets a call from Breena -- they're meeting with the adoption lawyer later in the day.
Outside, the neighbor who came to drop off his mail is freaking out. She's not much help, her ears are still ringing.
The occupant, Lt. JG Terence Keith, is on two week's leave visiting his mother in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He wanted to fly, but washed out of the program. McGee calls Keith's mom -- he hasn't been there and isn't expecting him.
There's no recent activity on his credit card or cell phone.
The office stops as Ziva's phone rings. Tony answers it. It's her dentist.
A loud woman comes in cheerfully calling Gibbs "probie." She's Vera, she has a meeting with Vance. She calls him Leroy and says they'll catch up later.
She's Special Agent Vera Strickland, Mike Franks' last partner.
Gibbs tells McGee to come with him to the Pentagon, but he lies and says Abby needs his help with something in the lab. He'd never get in the Pentagon without is ID. Tony insists he has nothing to do with the missing ID and asks if McGee left it on a booty call with DOD Delilah.
Down in the morgue, Palmer leaves early for his appointment with the lawyer.
In the lab, Abby is rocking out to the Sterile Puppets -- she and McGee went to the concert last night. She mentions the band has been trending on Twitter since the show. He wonders if someone lifted his things at the show.
Abby lends him Ziva's scarf to help him feel better.
Duckie brings up the building manager's clothes, which have something fused on them.
Abby determined the explosive was 10-12 ounces of C4.
Gibbs meets with Keith's CO, who says his heart wasn't really in the job.
In MTAC, Vance and Vera are chatting when Vance notices McGee down on his hands and knees in the corner. He says he lost his car keys.
Vera's retiring at the end of the month and will be at admin riding out her time.
Abby IDs DNA on the bomb -- it belongs to Lt. Keith.
They look over his phone records and find he called Lt. JG Dana Robins repeatedly over the past few days.
Tony looked into his background and found Keith was a science nerd in high school and got picked on.
Gibbs sets Vera up in an empty cubicle.
Down in the lab, Abby reports the C4 was manufactured by a company in Des Moines, which is only distributed by Pyrotechnic Engineering in Anacostia.
Tony finds Keith was an electronic engineering major, so he'd have the know how to make a bomb. Gibbs sends them to Anacostia and McGee has to confess he lost his credentials. Gibbs sends Vera with Tony, over her strong objections based on his history of car crashes and getting shot at.
At Pyrotechnic Engineering, Vera takes over Tony's interview and learns that Keith was there looking to buy C4 but was turned away for not having the credentials. The manager referred him to a demolitions expert, Larry Purcell, when Keith said it was for blasting tree stumps.
Gibbs meets with Lt. Robins at NCIS. She's deploying in the morning on the USS Benjamin Franklin. She flies F-18s. She and Keith were "just classmates." He was a good pilot, but the pressure got to him. He needed to be on anti-anxiety meds but couldn't and fly. She thinks he resented her moving on in training. She thought his call was odd, he wanted to see her, but she said no.
Tony and Vera go see Purcell, who says Keith was there a couple weeks ago. He says he has to go check his records to see if he sold Keith C4. He goes inside and Tony hears a noise. He tackles Vera out of the way just before Larry comes crashing through his garage door in a truck. Tony shoots out one of its tires and Larry doesn't get far.
Back at NCIS, Larry tells Tony he needed the money.
Vera joins McGee in observation. She has a severe ankle sprain.
Larry tells them he sold Keith 200 pounds of C4. Vance freaks out -- that's more C4 than was used to attack the USS Cole in Yemen.
Abby reports that she got into Keith's hard drive and found he's been buying anti-anxiety meds online. The melted plastic on the dead guy's shirt was a private pilot's license registered to Lt. Keith -- the contents of the registered letter the manager was going to put in his apartment.
Tony goes to visit the pilot who certified Keith. Keith rented a two seater for two days.
In a barn somewhere, Lt. Keith works on building a giant bomb.
Vance chats with FAA Director Stacy Bergin, who says the plane flew below radar so they don't know where it is.
Gibbs orders everyone to stay on alert.
The next morning, Vera gets off the phone with HR and rejoices that she doesn't have to come in to work anymore because of her injury.
Vance comes to McGee with his ID -- it was turned in at RFK Stadium where McGee went to the concert. He's busted.
Gibbs, Vance and Duckie conference with Bergin in MTAC. Duckie profiled Keith and says his going off his meds suddenly could make him unstable. They think he's seeking revenge but still don't know where.
Down in the lab, Palmer is worried about his adoption chances given the macabre nature of his and Breena's work (she's a mortician).
McGee comes down, bummed about his ID and inevitable investigation. Abby mentions the band they saw has gone viral with more than one million followers. She knows the drummer. McGee gets an idea.
It takes several attempts to explain it to Gibbs, but they convince him to get Twitter followers to be on the lookout for Keith under #findthisplane.
McGee tracks the tweets that follow and they get a sense of its flight path. Admiral Wayne Hargrove scrambles two jets to intercept, but they can't shoot it down over a populated area.
From the tweets, they see he's flying a zigzag pattern. Gibbs realizes where Keith is going -- to the Benjamin Franklin in the bay.
They find a way to access him via radio.
Up in the plane, Keith is twitchy.
The fighter planes catch up with him and the Benjamin Franklin goes on alert.
Gibbs radios Keith to tell him the Franklin has locked onto him.
"You don't understand, I need to do this," a shaky Keith says. Gibbs urges him to turn around so they can help him.
The ship is ready to fire.
Keith turns away from the Franklin and takes his hand off the switch -- his plane explodes.
Later, the NCIS crew is ready to head home, but Agent Eugene Coyle is waiting for McGee about his credentials. Vance intercepts him -- McGee and the rest of the team have been invited to the White House for saving the Benjamin Franklin.
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