NCIS Season 10

Episode 1 - Extreme Prejudice

The NCIS team surveys the damage and casualties from the terrorist bombing while Ducky recovers from his heart attack. SecNav Jarvis issues the command to proceed with extreme prejudice in locating Harper Dearing, who sees through the sting operation to capture him by bombing the FBI SWAT team. Understanding that Dearing has nothing left to lose after the death of his son, Gibbs invokes a “poke the bear” strategy to incite Dearing to be on the offensive rather than defensive side. After Dearing calls Gibbs, the team traces the call only to find a car that explodes with the charred remains of a body inside, a halfway match for Dearing’s DNA. An incredulous Gibbs arranges a meeting with Dearing’s sister-in-law who reveals information that leads Gibbs to ascertain that the DNA match was due to Dearing’s use of his brother’s remains as a decoy. When NCIS and FBI members track Dearing’s whereabouts to an old farmhouse but don’t find him there, Gibbs tells Vance that he expects Dearing to be waiting for him at the house Evan grew up in. When Gibbs confronts Dearing at the house, the two men discuss Evan’s death until Dearing reaches for his gun, prompting Gibbs to swiftly take him down with his knife.

Episode 2 - Recovery

The NCIS team launches an investigation to find armory worker Margaret “Midge” Mayhew, who has been missing since the bombing at the Navy Yard a month ago (at the hands of Harper Dearing). They find her body in her car underwater at a nearby roadside pond off the interstate and discover a gunshot wound to her abdomen. After questioning Midge’s co-worker, Ben Phelps, Tony and Ziva suspect the wound could be from the boxes of ammo that were sent flying from the bombing. Abby discovers a bullet lodged in the seat, inferring that she was shot while inside of the vehicle. Ziva questions Midge’s daughter Grace and learns that her mother was a proponent of females advancing in the workplace and recent records indicated that Midge hired a female candidate over disgruntled former Air Force member David Wilson. Wilson’s reproach over Ben Phelps’ affinity for Midge leads Ziva to question Phelps again and he admits to having a fling with her in the past but he’s moved on and is now with someone else. Evidence continues to stack up against Ben including the fact that his rare 1903 colt, same type that killed Midge, is missing from his gun case. While questioning Ben, Tony recognizes a familiar perfume scent in Ben’s house that ultimately leads them to their killer. Ben’s girlfriend Judy, Navy Facilities Manager working on the Navy Yard clean- up, was threatened by Ben’s close friendship with Midge and thought the bombing was a good opportunity to kill her and make it look like an accident. The discovery was coincidentally made by Tony who, at the beginning of the episode, was unsuccessful at getting a seemingly single Judy to go out with him. He recognized the scent of her perfume as the same scent in Ben’s house. Gibbs helps Abby cope with the psychological aftermath of the bombing by encouraging her to connect with her recently discovered biological brother Kyle.  

Episode 3 - Phoenix

Ducky exhumes Navy Commander Bruce Roberts’ body which he autopsied 12 years ago when he notices in the obituaries that Roberts’ father had passed away from a rare genetic liver condition. Inferring that Roberts must have had the condition as well, Ducky believes his death may have been a murder via a synthesized poison that would mimic the alcohol intoxication that was deemed as the original cause of death. Concurrently, the squad investigates the death of Marine Sergeant Raymond Hill, finding it odd that his smoke detector did not pick up on the carbon monoxide that killed him. They determine the two cases are linked when Abby finds a copy of Ducky’s exhumation order on Hill’s laptop and Jimmy uncovers an old chemical burn on Hill that matches the same chemicals in the poison that killed Roberts. Abby traces JSC-1, a lunar soil simulant, on Roberts’ uniform which leads Tony and Ziva to seek the opinion of scientist Dr. Felix Blackwell. He suggests the substance was used to make a dirty bomb, and old emails found between Roberts and Hill hint that Roberts had purchased an unknown object from Hill. The squad digs up an old news article about an infamous NASA Moon rock stolen from a museum and ties the theft to an email exchange between Hill and a second buyer, washed up musician Del Finney. They presume that Hill was running a con by selling fake JSC-1 based Moon rocks as the real, stolen piece. They discover that Dr. Blackwell worked at NASA at the time and had falsely verified the authenticity of the fake moon rock. Blackwell was in on the con with Hill selling fake moon rocks as real and Blackwell lying about its authenticity. Blackwell poisoned Roberts after he discovered the truth about the con and he killed Hill in order to tie up loose ends. After working point on the case thanks to Gibbs’ authority, Ducky is cleared for duty and resumes his position as medical examiner.  

Episode 4 - Lost at Sea

The NCIS team finds three very dehydrated survivors from a recent helicopter crash, Navy Lieutenant Joplin and Petty Officers Sparks and Portis, but their pilot Commander Happ remains missing. Eliminating the theory that the helicopter may have crashed with another aircraft, the team sets out to find the missing wreckage. CGIS Special Agent Abigail Borin makes a deal with a metal collector named Shamus Quinn to give her any items he finds on the beach in hopes of locating the missing helicopter pieces but nothing turns up. Tony and McGee find Happ’s body on the rocks of the beach and note a gunshot wound to his right temple. Ducky’s concludes that Happ had survived the crash and was killed shortly afterward. Abby’s ballistics test reveals that the gun was a spare registered to Petty Officer Sparks. Sparks tells Gibb that Happ, who was distressed over his child’s terminal illness, was trying to commit suicide by crashing the helicopter and he may have gotten hold of the gun after the helicopter crashed. However, Petty Officer Portis who just regained consciousness weakly shakes his head “no” when asked if Happ had tried to commit suicide. Ziva uncovers that all of the crew members, except for Happ, had recently applied for apostille stamps which would allow them to open offshore bank accounts. They learn that Commander Hernandez had also applied for one and flight records indicate that Hernandez was to be piloting the helicopter that night. Hernandez ultimately admits the crew’s plan to fake the crash so they could sell the helicopter and deliver it to the buyer on his cargo ship which was out at sea. Hernandez had backed out at the last minute and they got Happ to fill in instead. Once in flight, the crew told Happ about their scheme which he hesitantly agreed to go along with knowing how much the money would help with his son’s medical cost. However, while landing the helicopter on the ship, Happ backed out and pulled the gun on all of them including the buyer. The buyer turned the gun on Happ and killed him and forced the rest of the crew to jump ship in the middle of the ocean. The killer turned out to be Shamus Quinn who is eventually tracked down to a local warehouse.  

Episode 5 - The Namesake

The NCIS team investigates the murder of Petty Officer Colin Boxer as he was shot and killed while driving a Ferrari. McGee learns that the Ferrari is registered to the VCX FileShare corporation and was used by the CEO, Vijay Chaya. Abby uses the serial number on the gun found at the crime scene to track it to a Maryland pawn shop, where the clerk traces the purchase to a woman named Kim Taylor. They bring Kim in for questioning to learn that she gave the gun to her brother Kris. Ziva and McGee attempt to hunt Kris down at his college dorm room and only find his roommate there, but a second visit yields an explanation from Kris that the gun had been stolen from his car. Tony and Ziva head to a hotel Colin was working at as a part time valet and speak to his coworker, who informs them Colin had taken Vijay’s Ferrari for a joyride and also mentions a bookie had threatened to kill him. Ziva interrogates the bookie, but his alibi checks out. McGee reviews footage from Homeland Security cameras from the night of the crime to see a motorcyclist following the Ferrari. After being confronted with a frame-capture from the footage, Kris identifies his roommate, Alec Dell, as the motorcyclist. A background check uncovers that Dell had interned at VCX FileShare previously and pitched an idea that had been shot down at the time but was later patented by Vijay. They determine that Dell was bent on revenge against Chaya and mistakenly killed Colin that night, believing he was Chaya. They convince Chaya to lure Logan by sending him an email informing him that he would be depositing a million dollars in his bank account as partial payment for his idea. They trace Dell’s bank activity to the Appalachians and arrest him at his hideout. Gibbs reconnects with Leroy Jethro Moore, his father’s best friend and the man he was named after, and convinces his father to let go of his grudge against Moore for indirectly contributing to his wife’s death. He reunites the two of them, enabling them to settle their differences.  

Episode 6 - Shell Shock (Part 1)

The team receives a call about a murdered Marine, Lt. Michael Torres who is found beaten to death in an alley downtown. They head to Torres’ apartment after they are informed of a break in and find Captain Joe Wescott there. They question Wescott who explains he was gathering supplies at Torres’ apartment to hunt down the multiple attackers that went after he and Torres. Surveillance video from the alley is compromised as “ghost images” of people from previous recordings appear on the VHS tape. Abby’s wound analysis concludes that there were two attackers that night, which prompts Gibbs to confront Wescott about the inconsistencies in his story. Wescott is outraged at his accusation and Gibbs takes note of his disturbed behavior as well as the letters “I-J-I” found in Wescott’s notebook. After re-assembling the footage from the alley, the team is able to discern just one other man with Wescott and Torres that night. Facial recognition software identifies the other man as Randall Kersey and the recovered footage also shows that he was the one being attacked. Abby examines particles underneath Torres’ fingernails to determine they were fibers from Wescott’s jacket and that Torres had been holding him back. Kersey is brought in for questioning and tells Gibbs that when Wescott started attacking him at random, Torres tried to break them apart and suffered a fatal head wound when he hit the ground. They track Wescott down and Gibbs is able to break through to him, understanding that he is suffering from PTSD. Wescott tells Gibbs that he attacked Kersey thinking he was fighting in the war and Gibbs has Wescott speak to a doctor about his PTSD. Tony links the letters Gibbs found to the Ijil Rebels responsible for the ambush against Wescott’s unit in the war. CIA surveillance footage from the ambush reveals Robert Kersey as a member of the Ijil Rebels. The team heads to Kersey apartment only to find it empty, except for the large amount of bomb-making materials…to be continued.  

Episode 7 - Shell Shock (Part 2)

Continuing from episode #216, Gibbs asks Sgt. Joe Wescott, still suffering from PTSD, for help tracking down Ijil Rebel Randall Kersey. Wescott has a vague memory of the rebel group’s headquarters but isn’t able to recall concrete details. They locate Kersey’s girlfriend Brooke Fenton, who seems to be an oblivious pawn for Kersey’s cover. Gibbs takes Wescott back to the liquor store where he encountered Kersey to see if he can jog his memory. Wescott is able to remember that Kersey had handed off a piece of paper to a blue-haired girl, a regular customer according to the store’s clerk. After Ziva and Tony stake out the store to find her there, they learn that she was just the messenger for his deliveries and was planning to meet him at the train station that day for another delivery job. The team sets up the sting operation and arrests Kersey at the station, confiscating the package containing a I.E.D. and detonator. Gibbs interrogates Kersey in hopes of locating the bomb, but Kersey’s lack of remorse over the killings in the ambush causes Wescott to burst in the room and confront him. Wescott’s encounter with Kersey sparks his memory of Fenton’s photo on the wall of the Ijil headquarters and the team comes to the conclusion that Kersey and Fenton were working together. Abby matches the blueprint found in Kersey’s basement to the senator’s house which is the location of a Thanksgiving dinner being attended by members of Congress. At the estate, they are able to deactivate the bomb and arrest Fenton after spotting her in a police uniform trying to make her escape. Wescott’s distress is alleviated when another Marine from his unit helps him remember his noble effort to save another soldier in the ambush. Tony helps Ziva find a way to honor her sister on the anniversary of her passing.  

Episode 8 - Gone

The team receives a call about murdered Navy Captain David Wade who was picking up his daughter Lydia and her friend Rosie from work. Two men had ambushed the girls and abducted Rosie, killing Wade as he tried to rescue them. Lydia receives a text message from Rosie pleading for help and the team tracks the signal of the pre-paid phone to a trailer where they find the phone near a dead man identified as Shawn Oakby. They find pictures on the phone of Rosie in provocative clothing and Gibbs determines they were planning to sell her. Ducky uncovers anti-sweat chemicals on Oakby’s hands used by athletes and they suspect the perpetrators are tied to the local bowling alley where a vigil was being held for Rosie. While Abby and Ziva look after Lydia at Gibbs’ house, Fred the bowling alley manager breaks in and attacks the women, but Abby manages to take him down with a frying pan. They arrest Fred and he confesses he was the set-up man for the trafficking operation. He had feared that Lydia would remember details of the men from the kidnapping and tried to kill her before she could identify them. He also gives up that he was working with Oakby as well as another man named Merle. Gibb calls upon his old contact Miranda Pennebaker for help and she uses her sources to ascertain details of the unknown buyer the men had been working for. Pennebaker’s source uncovers the buyer’s name and the location of the planned sale of Rosie. The team arrests Merle as the buyer’s helicopter lands with Rosie inside. DiNozzo expresses jealously of a man Ziva has a close relationship with only to discover that he is an older mentor figure of hers.  

Episode 9 - Devil's Trifecta

We open this episode with FBI Senior Agent Fornell being shot at while leaving Beltway Burgers drive through and he quickly returns fire, killing shooter Navy Seaman Tyler Brown. The team goes to the bar of the matchbook found in Brown’s car and the manager informs them that Brown was the bouncer. Gibbs and Fornell are surprised to find their ex-wife Diane Sterling there inquiring about purchasing the bar. They learn that Diane was promoted to IRS Special Agent and is actually undercover on a tax-fraud case investigating the perpetrator behind multiple counts of identity theft for the purpose of filing fake tax returns to get refund checks. She had traced the identity theft to the bar and directs them to the check-cashing storefront where the cashier directs them to an accountant named Oliver Lambert as a possible suspect. They head to a rental house linked to Lambert and find a dead body in a crate full of frozen fish. The man is identified as a bar patron they had spoken to previously and they discover he aided in the identity theft for the operation along with Brown who had checked IDs as the bouncer. Abby uncovers a cell phone in each fish and detects an active one among them which had contact with Lambert’s phone.The team goes to the location of the placed call and finds Lambert there bleeding out from stab wounds. He admits he stole the money from the IRS in order to repay a debt he owed. Analyzing the fish shipping manifests leads them to the smuggler and Lambert’s client, Avis Gardner. Without enough evidence to tie him to Brown, Diane wires herself and approaches Avis to offer her services as his new accountant. He takes her to the man in charge of the whole operation and he turns out to be the check cashier from earlier. They arrest him and discover he was the one who put the hit on Diane and Fornell when he learned she was posing as Diane Fornell. Diane admits that her current husband is thinking about leaving her.  

Episode 10 - You Better Watch Out

When Noel Huffner, the husband of a Lieutenant Commander, is found dead with a mysterious-looking $100 bill in his wallet, the team learns of the government’s issuance of “New Benjamins,” a redesigned bill yet to be put into circulation. Secret Service agent, Ashley Winter, whose department oversees the Department of Treasury, advises on the case much to Gibbs’ annoyance. They detect the fingerprint of a former employee at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing on the bill and find the man’s body at a creek, with the connection between both victims being at a bar they frequented together. After they uncover more bills at the Huffner residence, microscopic fibers clinging on them are identified as particles of shredded bills that had been disposed of at a landfill. An employee at the landfill informs them of a break in the night the shredded bills were transported there and Gibbs recalls that there must have been satellite surveillance footage from that night for the purposes of extra security as it was the same day Bin Laden was assassinated. Gibbs recognizes the truck of the bar owner they had spoken to earlier from the footage and confronts him, getting him to admit that he and the Treasury employee were in on the heist. Not wanting to be traced back to the crime, the bar owner killed both victims after learning that the employee sold the bills to the Commander’s husband. Meanwhile, Tony’s father visits for Christmas and makes strides to repair their rocky relationship. 

Episode 11 - Shabbat Shalom

When the dead body of a man who had been impersonating Navy Officer Luke Grismer is found in the Potomac River, the team identifies him as government tabloid journalist Tyler Wilkes. They question Grismer and he reveals that Wilkes blackmailed him to use his I.D. in order to get into the barracks to do research. The team finds Wilkes’ car with his camera inside and recover photos of a man obfuscated by a coat and hat, his likely killer. Ziva notices that the hat in the pictures belongs to her father, Mossad Director Eli, who had first claimed to be in town to visit her and then admitted to his mission of establishing a peace treaty with an Iranian Intelligence Officer. When she confronts him about killing Wilkes, he explains that he had to take him out so he wouldn’t compromise his mission. As she stews in anger at the Shabbat dinner Vance hosts for Eli, a hired assassin shoots and kills Eli before being taken down by Ziva. The assassin poisons himself and the team speculates that if made public, the shooting could be taken as a declaration of war among Israel, Iran and the United States. Ziva grieves over her father’s death and the team learns that Vance’s wife, Jackie, was also killed in the shooting.  

Episode 12 - Shiva

We pick up from the previous episode with the team identifying Eli David and Jackie Vance’s killer as a hired shooter from the Swedish Special Forces with no political ties. Gibbs suspects that Arash Kazmi is the mastermind behind Eli’s death, but Kazmi maintains his innocence and offers to help with the case. When the ballistics report from the shooting comes back to reveal that the bullets came from an Iranian arms dealer, Gibbs questions why the dealer’s name was missing from the database of Iranian intelligence personnel Kazmi’s assistant sent them. Though Kazmi believes the file was likely intercepted, Mossad Deputy Director Ilan Bodnar puts pressure on the team when he demands that they arrest Kazmi. McGee traces the wire transfer made to the hired shooter’s ex-wife and son to an account under the name “Virtue” and it dawns on Ziva that the Hebrew translation is “Tohar,” Bodnar’s middle name. They learn Bodnar, hungry for Eli David’s job, was acting on his own but are unable to locate him after he goes rogue. Before leaving the country, Kazmi is killed by a bomb Bodnar set up. Vance goes on administrative leave and helps his children reconcile their mother’s death. Tony reunites Ziva with her mentor Shmeil and comforts her as she experiences a range of emotions while coming to terms with her father’s death.

Episode 13 - Hit and Run

The team is called to the scene of car accident in which civilian Lyla Cutwright and Lance Corporal Chad Dunn are found dead. They uncover a history of bad blood between the victims’ families stemming from the affair Lyla’s father had with Chad’s mother. Abby determines that a third person killed Lyla and knocked Chad unconscious before setting up the crash. Chad’s cousin Brandon reveals that the two were dating and Chad’s ill-tempered father becomes a suspect, but his alibi checks out. After discovering Lyla had taken 15k out of her trust fund and that Chad tried to take out a loan to put toward a dubious investment involving windmills, Gibbs recalls Brandon’s background as part owner of a green energy company. They get Brandon to admit to deceiving the couple with his Ponzi scheme and he finally confesses to murdering them when Tony presents him with the recovered murder weapon, an aluminum bat. Meanwhile, Gibbs gives Abby reassurance after the car accident triggers painful childhood memories and leaves her in doubt about whether her good deeds can make a difference.  

Episode 14 - Canary

After the team is able to capture Ajay Khan, the number two cyber-terrorist in the world, they interrogate him in hopes of bringing down M.C., his boss and the number one ranked cyber-terrorist. Met with little success, Gibbs comes up with a plan to intimidate Khan with a plane ride to Guantanamo Bay where Khan’s former employers who he had double-crossed are detained. Meanwhile, Abby and Gibbs trace information from Khan’s computer to locate a bomb maker killed by the Ebola virus and determine it was part of an impending biological attack orchestrated by M.C. Abby’s analysis reveals the Ebola strain was actually developed as a vaccine by the CDC; Khan had hacked the CDC and shipped the faulty vaccines as flu shots. After they track the shipment to stop the virus from being released, they stage a security breach at what Khan believes to be Guantanamo and the threat of being killed by his vengeful former employers incites him to give up M.C.’s IP address. A confounded Khan discovers that different members of NCIS were playing out roles as prison guards and detainees at Andrews Air Force Base and not Guantanamo Bay.  

Episode 15 - Hereafter

When Lance Corporal Crowe collapses during training at Quantico and dies of cerebral hemorrhaging, a marine in his unit, David Holland, informs the team that Crowe participated in illegal back-room fighting. They come up empty on leads after visiting the warehouse the fights took place in and turn to Holland as a suspect after uncovering evidence of dissention between he and Crowe. Holland is found dead from internal bleeding with similar injuries Crowe had sustained, including a stab wound with the same fiberglass fragments found in Crowe’s body. They uncover similar injuries among the other marines and speculate their captain may be involved after learning that his brother was tortured with fiberglass grenade casings in Kabul. They arrest the captain after he confesses he was inflicting the same torture on his unit in order to prepare them for the evil his brother had faced. The marines he tortured were loyal to their captain and never reported him. Meanwhile, after Vance discovers his late wife Jackie’s separate bank account, Gibbs comforts him by explaining that his own late wife Shannon separated their assets in case Gibbs was killed on the job. 

Episode 16 - Detour

After Lieutenant Gordon Roth commits suicide by ingesting drain cleaner, the team sets out to investigate who had shot him prior to his death. As Ducky and Jimmy are driving back from the crime scene with Roth’s body in tow, their van is hijacked and the two are taken to a remote cabin at gunpoint. While being forced to conduct an autopsy for their kidnappers, Ducky and Jimmy overhear details of monthly packages sent from Roth to their assailants. Knowing they will soon be killed, Ducky and Jimmy construct a makeshift bomb which allows them to escape into the forest. Meanwhile, the team learns that Roth is actually an impostor who stole the real Roth’s identity ten years ago and had been selling the Navy’s classified material to a Cuban source in exchange for money. They discover that Roth was having an affair with his commanding officer’s wife and her husband found out resulting in a physical confrontation on the day of his death. Roth was not fatally shot in the scuffle but decided to ditch his meeting with the Cubans. A patrol officer tried to pull him over after he ran through a stop sign prompting an injured Roth to flee his car and race to a nearby plumbing truck to ingest drain cleaner. He committed suicide in order to protect his operation as a mole. The team is able to locate and rescue Ducky and Jimmy just as one of their assailants had tracked them down. The last remaining kidnapper is tricked into capture thanks to a ruse Ducky and Jimmy had planned.

Episode 17 - Prime Suspect

When Gibbs’ longtime barber and friend confides in him, believing his own son Cameron might be the infamous serial killer the Dead Rose Slasher, Gibbs sets out to covertly investigate Cameron. The metro police detective on the case gets wind of NCIS involvement in the case and learns they are looking into Cameron as a suspect. Gibbs is able to block the detective from taking Cameron into custody and rules him out as a suspect when his alibi checks out, but realizes he has further strained the relationship between Cameron and his father. Vance arranges for Abby to help the backlogged metro forensics team on the case and she locates a miniscule speck of the killer's blood left on a thorn from the signature rose placed on one of the victims from three years ago. They match the DNA to determine the killer's identity and find out that he died shortly after the initial killings, meaning the recent murders were committed by a copycat. As the silver wedding bands found in each victim's mouth were kept as a secret to prevent false confessions, they target the few individuals who knew about the bands and discover that the news reporter on the case, Bart Crowley, was privy to the information. They suspect Crowley committed the murders to resurrect his career and arrest him after finding dead roses, multiple wedding bands, and the murder weapon in his apartment. Gibbs convinces Cameron to forgive his father for believing he could have been a suspect. Meanwhile, Tony hazes probationary agent Ned Dorneget when the two head to the Bahamas to hunt down a Lance Corporal who stole $120,000 from his last assignment.  

Episode 18 - Seek

Marine Sergeant Teddy LeMere is killed by a sniper in Kabul next to his sniffing service dog, Dex, while helping a government contractor, Jim Virgil, detect IEDs in abandoned buildings. LeMere’s wife, Ruby, asks Gibbs to look into her husband’s death after she plays a cryptic phone message right before he died. At first we suspect Norman Pittorino, the government hired dog trainer that LeMere had an altercation with six month ago while training Dex. A few days later Ruby shows up at NCIS with an expensive gold pendant engraved with an Afghani family crest that her husband had mailed two weeks before his death. Gibbs drops Ruby and Dex off at home only to discover that there is an intruder in the house in search of the pendant. The intruder gets away but not before Dex takes a bite out of his pant leg. Abby discovers that the bullet that killed LeMere was manufactured in America leading Gibbs to believe that it may not have been the Taliban. Gibbs, McGee and Dex travel to Kabul to meet with the government contractor who helps him pinpoint the location of where the shot came from. Based on the location of the bullet fragment and the angle of the shot, Gibbs realizes that the shot came from a nearby building that LeMere and Dex were recently canvassing. LeMere discovered the government contractors were looting the abandoned buildings that he and Dex were canvassing. They would then send all the valuables back to the states through Pittorino who had no idea his bags were being stashed with goods for his delinquent nephew to hold onto. LeMere was killed because he planned to blow the whistle on Virgil and his team and refused to be bought off. Meanwhile, Vance interviews prospective nannies for his children but has difficulty choosing one. 

Episode 19 - Squall

When naval physician Commander Brian Haber is found murdered on the USS Borealis during an intense squall, Gibbs approaches the admiral of the ship to find answers and is shocked to discover the man is McGee’s father. Met with resistance from Admiral McGee, Ziva and Agent Burley question another witness who reveals that Haber was about to come forward with information regarding another crew member’s illegal drug use. They interrogate a petty officer with a history of drug abuse but believe his shaky hands could not have expertly targeted Haber’s carotid artery. After recovered surveillance footage from that night shows Petty Officer Graves removing data from Haber’s laptop, they track Graves down and suspect he was covering for someone else. Following a hunch that one of Haber’s patients had targeted him, the team traces the tablet used to keep a record of patients and note that the last name on the list didn’t appear in the ship’s records. McGee identifies the name as one of his father’s favorite poets and despite the rocky relationship they have, he is distressed when the admiral is cross-examined for the murder. The admiral admits he was seeing Haber for treatment of his stage four cancer but maintains he did not kill him, leaving McGee devastated and Gibbs with the suspicion that his aide, Carlton Mane, was the only other person with knowledge of his career ending illness. They determine that Mane knew he would lose his expected promotion that would come with Admiral McGee’s impending cabinet position if his cancer was exposed and had tried covering up his tracks by using Graves and discarding the tablet. The team helps McGee come to terms with his father’s cancer and the two make strides to repair their relationship.  

Episode 20 - Chasing Ghosts

After Navy Reserve Lieutenant Callie Daniels comes home to find her house torn apart and her husband Noah missing, the team searches her home and find his severed finger. When they uncover a trust account in Noah’s name with a balance of 2.5 million, they speculate that the perpetrator was after the money. Callie receives a call from Noah’s captor allowing them to trace the line to the perpetrator’s empty van. The license plate leads them to the vehicle’s owner who explains he had lent the van to his brother Darryl. After seeing that both Darryl and Noah had debit card charges at the same restaurant and at the same time, they question the restaurant’s owner, Rebecca, who notes that Darryl had hassled Noah about his trust fund money. Abby’s analysis from the crime scene reveals that the struggle was manufactured and that there was another person who helped haul Noah off. Through the FBI’s tip line, the team locates Darryl’s body at a hotel with a suicide note, but when the autopsy debunks the death as a suicide, they listen to the original call with the tip and recognize the voice as Rebecca’s. The team tracks her down and coerces her to confess that she was romantically involved with Noah and was in cahoots with him to stage his own kidnapping and murder so they could abscond with his trust fund, using Darryl as a pawn in their scheme. Meanwhile, Tony discovers Ziva and McGee have been working together to locate Bodnar and Gibbs and Vance give Ziva permission to go to Rome in pursuit of him.  

Episode 21 - Berlin

As Tony and Ziva head to Berlin to track down Bodnar, the team is visited by newly appointed Mossad Director Orli Elbaz who asks for the team’s help investigating the murder of Mossad Officer Mantel in Virginia by a rogue faction in support of Bodnar. While Gibbs and McGee search the hotel Mantel was staying in, they notice a man in a SUV watching them but he drives away before they can confront him. When Abby discovers that Mantel was using Mossad’s old communication system and that his laptop was rigged with misleading files, they hack into Mossad’s database for answers. Upon seeing that Mantel was red-flagged as a rogue officer, they realize that he was working with Bodnar and that there was never a faction to begin with. After pressing Orli for answers, they put the pieces together to determine that she believed Bodnar was still in the U.S. and gave NCIS a dummy case which would grant permission for Mossad to be on U.S. soil. Orli had Mantel killed and wanted to kill Bodnar before he could be arrested, thereby ensuring that Mossad’s secrets would be kept safe. She also had CIA and Homeland Security searching for Bodnar in Rome in hopes that he would let his guard down, making him easier to track in the states. Meanwhile in Berlin, Ziva and Tony locate the courier scheduled to make a delivery of diamonds to Bodnar, but instead the hand off is made to Bodnar’s brother Yaniv. Just as they are driving back from delivering Yaniv to the Federal marshals, Ziva and Tony are broad-sided by an SUV targeting them.  

Episode 22 - Revenge

Picking up from the car crash at the end of the previous episode, the driver of the SUV, revealed to be Ilan Bodnar, takes away the bag of diamonds from a helpless Ziva and Tony. The team tracks the SUV to a remote house in the countryside to find Bodnar’s dead accomplice and a cryptic note. At first Ducky and Jimmy have difficulty identifying the man given his extensive plastic surgery and removed fingerprints, but a serial number on his prosthetic jaw leads them to his plastic surgeon who gives them pictures of the man before his many operations. They identify the man as Clive Goddard, a South African mercenary involved in blood-diamond smuggling. In an abrupt video chat to Ziva, Bodnar reveals he did not kill Arash Kazmi, the Iranian intelligence officer who died from a bomb believed to be set up by Bodnar. Analyzing the background from Bodnar’s call to Ziva brings them to the conclusion that he is stationed in New York, but upon further investigation, McGee realizes Bodnar had used a fake backdrop for the video to mislead them. Ducky’s knowledge of a South African language helps them interpret the cryptic note which refers to a ship and its location in the Port of Baltimore. As the team heads there to find Bodnar, Ziva covertly races ahead to confront him on her own. After the two engage in violent combat, we cut to Ziva facing Vance, and he questions whether or not she killed Bodnar in self-defense.  

Episode 23 - Double Blind

When Petty Officer Lowry is stopped while chasing a man he insists is following him, Lowry appeals to the team to help him find his pursuer as his recent mugging left him with a concussion and gaps in his memory. Abby finds a crumpled legal disclaimer among Lowry’s possessions, but Lowry is unable to recall what he signed up for. The team stimulates his senses to jog his memory, and his recollection of bratwurst leads them to his pursuer eating the sausage in a warehouse used for a government-funded study on surveillance that Lowry had volunteered for. The warehouse is burned down in a fire before they are able to investigate further, but Gibbs’ realization that Lowry could have motive for getting rid of evidence from the study causes them to search through the surveillance tapes on Lowry. They find that Lowry had inadvertently included his friend in the videos, a marine who was absconding from deploying on a third tour. Lowry confesses he had tried erasing the data in the warehouse in order to protect her and the team arrests him. Meanwhile, when an investigator from the Department of Defense questions the team about Ilan Bodnar’s death, it initially seems as if he is investigating Ziva and then Vance, but it is quickly revealed that Gibbs was his target all along.  

Episode 24 - Damned If You Do

After Gibbs is held in custody by Department of Defense IG Investigator Richard Parsons, Vance calls on Rear Admiral A.J. Chegwidden to step in as Gibbs' lawyer. The presiding judge on the case gives A.J. a 48 hour window before the arraignment that may lead to Gibbs' arrest. A.J. and Gibbs head to a remote cabin built by Gibbs to escape from the IG sanctioned wire taps while the rest of the team rallies together to dig up dirt on Parsons. The team is stalled by the murder of Navy SEAL Lieutenant McBride, whose severed head is the only clue to the case. When the autopsy reveals that McBride was tortured, Vance goes to Homeland Chief Morrow for answers and learns that the CIA killed Arash Kazmi to make Bodnar the fall guy in order to distract the Iranian and Israeli governments. The distraction set the table for McBride to undergo a top-secret recon assignment. With Gibbs about to stand trial, Ziva resolves to take the fall for the accusations against him, with Tony and McGee following suit to turn in their badges with her. After Parsons' indictment against Gibbs is foiled, Morrow approaches Gibbs with an offer to drop all charges in exchange for his help in a dangerous investigation involving mounting casualties against Navy SEALS. 

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 ~ ~ ~ END OF SEASON 10 ~ ~ ~