- An explosion and a fire damage an offshore drilling platform near the Virginia Capes, killing one (a major in the US Marine Corps Reserve) and injuring many others; Gibbs and company, along with Abby of the CGIS, investigate. The CEO and the chief legal counsel of the oil company assure the SecNav and Gibbs of their utmost cooperation. Tony and McGeek trace one lead, which appears to reach a dead end, but which leaves egg on McGoo's face; Gibbs and the other Abby suspect that the target was not the platform but rather the dead victim. Tony and McGee plus Gibbs and Borin revisit the dead end, where they make a major discovery; Abby puts things together in her shop; Borin questions the corporate lawyer in Gibbs's chat room and brings the investigation to a close. Meanwhile Halloween pranks abound, eventually tripping even Tony.—DocRushing
- An explosion damages an offshore drilling platform, killing one (a major in the Marine Corps Reserve) and injuring others; Gibbs and company plus Borin of the CGIS investigate. Abby contributes much; the team find the bad guy and crack him.—DocRushing
- On an oil rig on the ocean, they run a drill for an attack. When it's over, there's an explosion.
In the office, McGee arrives to find his desk completely covered in plastic wrap. Abby is upset that someone moved her desk three inches and concludes they're dealing with a sadistic, evil genius. Tony denies responsibility.
Gibbs comes in with the body of the week: a dead Marine at Virginia Beach.
At the scene, Coast Guard Special Agent Abigail Borin (Diane Neal) is in charge. The victim, Marv Hebner, was on the bridge at the time of the explosion.
The victim's wife Paige arrives and Marv's friend Jonah confirms it's Marv.
A freighter captain called in to report he passed a motorboat with its lights off last night. They get notice that Homeland Security put all rigs on alert.
Back at the office, it's victim rundown time. Marvin Hebner completed three tours in the Middle East until returning three months ago and going to work for City Line.
Gibbs get a call that annoys him greatly. He goes to the conference room to meet with Secnav Sarah Porter and City Line CEO Perry Davidson and Brett Creevy, their lead counsel. They're assuming the attack was terrorism.
Davidson says if it was an attack, it wasn't very strategic -- it has a smaller crew and output than other rigs.
Down in the morgue, Agent Borin joins Duckie. There's a faint beep from somewhere. Gibbs comes down and Duckie reports that Hebner drowned. Duckie pulled gold fragments from Hebner.
Borin gets a call that the rogue motorboat has been found abandoned, it was stolen from a cruiser.
Duckie hears the phantom beep again.
McGee comes down to the lab and grabs a fire extinguisher when he sees an open flame. Abby was burning sage to purify her work space.
Abby found malware on the rig server sent through email spam. McGee scans the malware for a coding signature.
Tony and McGee go talk to Danielle Benton, the programmer. She explains she created the software for her senior thesis years ago as a tool for anti-corporate intelligence gathering. It has no input capability. "It's looky, no touchy," she explains.
McGee is chagrined he didn't realize it.
With the crime scene released as structurally sound, Borin and Gibbs go check out the blast site. She tells him about her time in Iraq, including narrowly surviving an IED attack. Gibbs finds the detonator, which rules out terrorism. Since the bridge is a poor place to try to take down the rig, they figure Marv himself was the target.
Gibbs and Borin take their theory to the CEO and lawyer. They tell them Hebner had a falling out with Jonah over an OSHA infraction and Jonah was about to be fired.
When McGee and Tony meet with Jonah says Marv was his closest friend. Jonah says Marv actually committed the safety violation, but Jonah took the fall for him to try to repay him for everything he'd done for him.
Agent Borin drops in on Abby to learn about the bomb. The cell phone detonator was untraceable and the main ingredient in the explosive was pure black powder, which isn't very powerful. Also, the bomb was placed in the one spot on the rig where it wouldn't trigger a chain reaction.
In the office, Tony gets nervous that Secnav is hanging around so much.
McGee runs background checks on the food service employees who weren't screened by City Line. He finds Lenny Pachaca has a record and was aboard as Lenny Machaca. He did time for possession and transportation of explosives.
When Borin and Tony go to pick up Pachaca, he runs when he sees them. Borin cuts him off and takes him out with a well-placed board.
Back in interrogation, Pachaca calls Hebner a "tightly wound hardass." He says his past explosive dalliances were just for fun blowing stuff up. Borin paints a gruesome picture for him of what being caught in a blast is like, from her own experience narrowly missing an IED in Iraq. She gets too intense with him and Gibbs relieves her.
Secnav shares memories of Boston with McGee. Gibbs is annoyed. McGee confirmed Pachaca's alibi.
Tony reports the server of the firm that designed the rig was hacked recently and the only plans compromised were those of the City Line. They decide to look at Danielle Benton again.
When Secnav leaves, Gibbs follows her. He wants to know what she's doing there. She assures him it's only for the case, and she isn't concerned about him adding someone to replace Ziva.
Gibbs sits down in the park with Borin. She admits she thinks about that day in Iraq everyday and replays things she could have done differently. She lost three people that day, including her boyfriend. She saw him blow up and pulled his body from the water.
Tony calls with Danielle's location. Borin wants to pull out of the case, but Gibbs won't let her.
Danielle, an eco warrior, is found on a boat with 50 gallons of black gun powder in its hold.
Back in interrogation, McGee confronts Danielle with surveillance photos and security access codes to ten biotech labs hit by arsonists. Her prints are all over them. She says the lab experimented on animals and she saved lives.
She says she got the plans to board City Line in a protest, the explosion harmed sea life, which goes against everything she believes in.
Down in the lab, Abby says she found sturgeon leather in their crime scene. The gold Duckie found was from a locking mechanism. Putting them together, she traced them to an attaché case. She was able to connect it to Brett Creevy, the corporate counsel.
As they wait to interrogate Creevy, McGee reports Creevy lost his life savings in a Ponzi scheme last year. He shorted City Line stock and made tens of millions after it crashed following the explosion. He has a flight booked to the Maldives tonight.
Gibbs lets Borin talk to him. She confronts him with the evidence and the fact witnesses remember seeing him with the attaché case on the rig, but don't remember him leaving with it.
Creevy cracks and say no one was supposed to get hurt.
Back upstairs, Duckie comes up with the source of the beep -- a tiny gadget designed to beep intermittently. They all assume Tony's behind it, in part because he haven't been pranked. He picks up his bag to go, but falls over under its weight -- it's packed with books and dumbbells.
Borin drops in on Gibbs in his basement. She assumes he's behind the pranks. He asks her if she's interested in coming to NCIS. She's tempted, but doesn't feel her work with the Coast Guard is done yet. But she leaves the door open.
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