Original subtitles

In hindsight, that should have been my first clue, but I learned a very

valuable lesson that day.

You can always tune a piano, but you can never tune a fish. Yeah. Oh, man.

Ladies and gentlemen, my husband.

You knew what you were getting.

Aw. Get a room.

So Linda and Greg, they're opening their home and proving once again that no

dinner with friends

Awful puns.

Or magazine-worthy centerpieces.

Is that what this thing is? I thought something died.

Pause off the plumage, Frank.

If my centerpiece isn't perfect when I get back, heads will roll.

Okay, decision time.

Red or white?

Hello?

Very funny.

Fine, I'm bringing both.

You can all stop pouting.

Oh, my God.

Greg? Guys?

I heard Tony's replacing morning briefings with movie trivia.

I heard it was mandatory karaoke.

All right, you guys both know those are just rumors.

Do we? Tony's only been director for a week. I mean, between all the meetings

and security briefings, Tony hasn't even had time to direct.

Hence the all-hands meeting this afternoon.

Exactly. I'm guessing that's when we will hear his vision for NCIS.

I'd rather be hearing your vision.

I always thought Director McGee had a nice ring to it.

Not so sure that I was on second half's short list.

Oh, speaking of short list.

Ziva called me last night. Ziva, Ziva?

Mm-hmm.

What does she want?

She is concerned.

About Tony taking over NCIS?

About Tony eating donuts.

I have been recruited to make sure that Tony stays on his diet. Apparently, he

only listens to strong women.

They scared him.

So, uh, director, that also comes with extra work?

Look, guys, I'm telling you, we can relax.

All right? Things will be different with Tony, yes, but I'm telling you, we will

survive.

You were saying?

All

right.

And I have everybody's attention.

Good news.

Nobody's melting.

Apparently, someone accidentally triggered the biohazard alarm.

I hope.

Accidentally.

Either way, the building has been cleared for reentry.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on. Before you go back to your jobs, I would like to take

this opportunity to welcome you to our first all-hands meeting.

It's just a little ahead of schedule.

Well, at least he's making the most of it.

It's a job.

You may be wondering what my vision is as director for NCIS.

And the truth is,

Maybe I don't have a vision.

Your boy's losing me.

That's not what's important.

You don't need to understand me.

That's not your job. Your job is to solve cases.

And my job is to make sure nothing gets in your way.

Okay.

Of course, I am going to screw things up, probably before lunch.

Hopefully a heart-healthy lunch.

But you won't have time to worry about me.

You'll be too busy.

Solving cases.

Naval intelligence officer.

Busting bad guys. Gassed at a dinner party last night. And being heroes.

Are they seriously walking out during another director's speech? Well, maybe

this director won't notice.

And that's what I'm talking about.

That right there.

Go on.

Go.

Go be heroes.

All right.

Let's hear it.

Wow.

Thank you, everybody.

Back to work.

One minute, Frank was making fun of my centerpiece, and the next, everyone just

collapsed. Almost everyone, Mrs. Fenwick. Please call me Linda. Now,

believe me, I'd rather have passed out. I watched four armed men go through my

house like a Williams-Sonoma sample sale.

Did you recognize any other gunmen?

They wore gas masks.

That means we were gassed, right? Looks that way. Everyone seems to have

recovered, though.

I hid in the pantry. One of them was coming straight toward me. I grabbed my

stand mixer, ready to clobber him, and he just turned and left.

They all did.

Like, it never even happened.

Who were they?

We're trying to find out.

Um, how well did you know Naval Intelligence Officer DeWitt?

Mallory? She's a good friend.

The EMTs took her to the hospital. I said she'd hit her head on my

centerpiece.

Told me.

Lovely. Thank you. Everyone says I overdo it, but dining with Dazzle is my

love language.

And the name of my party planning podcast.

Is Mallory gonna be okay?

Just a few stitches. We've got agents with her now.

It's possible she was the target.

Do you excuse me for a minute?

Gladly. That salmon mousse on the floor won't clean itself.

Greg? Han?

No one on the street saw anyone coming or going. As far as we can tell, the

whole operation lasted 96 seconds.

Efficient? Bizarre. The house is untouched. No open drawers, no missing

cash, jewelry.

Phones?

Wallets? All personal effects are accounted for, including Officer

DeWitt's. The government didn't take anything.

So what the hell were they doing here?

Hey, sorry. I'm Tak Ran Long.

Not the first impression I like to make on a first date. Think you mean update?

Throw out something to mark the occasion.

Rock lotion?

Parker's Pastries.

Don't mind if I do.

Is that a chocolate chip there?

Raisins. Yum.

If you don't like raisins.

Delicious.

Spoken Naval Intelligence, they reset every password that Officer DeWitt had

access to. Was she compromised?

Not as far as ONI could tell.

They can't say for sure until we figure out why the gunman crashed that dinner

party. What about the other dinner guests?

Butcher, estate attorney, and research technician for a shampoo company.

None of them exactly scream hard target.

Let's stop pretending.

You clearly hate raisins.

I really do.

Much better.

Now it's your turn.

My turn for what? Stop pretending this isn't hard.

Leon Vance was a giant.

And now the former wild card is sitting in his office. I heard class clown.

The point is, I know. I also know what this office means, and I don't plan on

letting anyone down, including him.

Good.

Well, Knight's re-interviewing the guests, and McGee and Torres are

following up with the hosts.

Keep me posted.

Will do.

Director.

All right, so the two of you have clean records.

No lawsuits, no threats.

Unless you count the woman who almost killed me over bubble wrap.

My husband owns a shipping store. Oh, if NCIS ever needs a really competitive

raise... Sorry.

He's a born salesman.

You knew what you were getting.

Now, you two must be newlyweds, huh?

It'll be five years next month.

Longest honeymoon on record.

All right.

So, the dinner parties, have they always been the same group? For years now. Same

friends, same bad jokes.

Different casseroles.

I still no idea why someone would go to the trouble of breaking into your home.

No clue.

I had a $3,000 stamp collection, and they didn't even touch that. They didn't

leave anything behind, either. We did a full sweep of the house.

Well, when you do find them, they're gonna wish they never messed with my

wife.

I have a very particular set of skills.

Shipping? Yes, mostly shipping.

But packages aren't the only thing I can make disappear.

You're adorable, honey.

Okay, well, you two have given us a lot to think about.

Please let us know if you remember anything useful. Okay.

Well, this is not useful.

Save yourself the trip. All I've got are more dead ends.

No fingerprints.

No matches on the knockout gas. I mean, I'm officially out of science. Oh,

Director DiNozzo.

Hi. I thought you were Parker or McGee or literally anyone else.

First time for everything?

Yeah.

Can I... Hello.

Can I help you? From the sound of things, no.

At least not with this case.

Uh, honestly, nobody can.

We got tilch.

Good. Good?

Yeah, it means I can stop wondering about the case and start wondering about

the Casey.

Oh.

Um,

something I can help you find?

Well, coffins, farting hippos, roller skates.

Ah, I think you're looking for Abby.

No, I'm just looking for that other thing, you know? The thing nobody

expects, the hobby, the side project, the weird obsession.

That? It's usually the stuff that ends up solving the hard cases.

Wow.

Do you play the theremin?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are actually really great at diagnosing electrical

shorts. That's fascinating.

Yeah. I'm gonna go back to work.

All right.

Well, you do your thing.

Just remember, the weirder, the better.

Well, I did empty the Fenwick's cute little robot vacuum. I thought, you

know, maybe that... sucked up something the gunman dropped, but it was honestly

just another dead end.

Did you... Well,

first you cornered Casey, and now you're biting the coffee.

Vision speech said we barely noticed you.

I just had a few follow-up questions.

Well, I hope you're not here to ask for your old apartment back, are you?

Because Delilah just redecorated it. Oh, no, I've already spoken to Delilah.

She's okay with it.

She's what? What do you mean?

Kidding.

I found another place.

Afternoon, director.

Hey.

Director DiNozzo.

Still doesn't sound real. I'm hoping repetition helps. Not that I don't think

you can do the job, you know. It's just I keep picturing the guy who drove a

Corvette with his feet. I was being shot at.

And believe it or not, this is harder. I spent the last week learning what keeps

the U.S. Navy up at night. And this job requires both hands.

And both feet.

Okay. Tell me, who's your probie?

I won't. Okay.

I'm gonna take my director hat off.

So who's your guy? Or gal?

Tony, I'm serious. They never assign me a probie. You don't assign anyone a

probie. You gotta take one.

Someone to mentor.

To torture.

Exactly. Everyone benefits.

Okay. Director hat back on.

I am ordering you.

Get a probie.

Ooh, okay.

You know what? I think I may have someone.

I served as acting director several times already.

This is pretty much your first day on the job.

Danger, Will Robinson. I can have you court-martialed. Whatever you say,

probie. Agent Knight.

Excellent timing.

What kind of milk is in there?

The skim.

Huh. Uh, we just got our first break in the case.

Backyard Burning Man? Close.

After the dinner party break-in, one of the dinner guests went home and had a

bonfire. A concerned neighbor snapped that at about 2 a.m. A little late to be

toasting marshmallows. And according to the neighborhood chat, two more dinner

guests had bonfires that same night.

Three guests, three bonfires?

Well, that's not a coincidence.

Nope. That is a cover-up.

All right, Casey.

Three expedited search warrants, three backyards dug up before dawn. Tell me it

was worth it. Depends on if you like weird as much as our new director.

Frank Russo, Dawn Spurlock, Evan Jenks. Three dinner guests, three very strange

piles of ash.

They all contain burn paper. No surprise there if you're destroying evidence.

But I also found traces of hair.

Fingernails? Who burns fingernails? People trying to destroy DNA.

But whatever the reason, they were in a hurry to hide it. Maybe that's what our

suburban commandos were after when they broke into the Fenwick house. Could be.

But Linda and Greg Fenwick never had a bonfire. And they're the only ones who

haven't lawyered up. So our happy couple wasn't a part of whatever this is?

They just invited the wrong people to dinner.

What's with the NCIS security cameras?

Oh, it's not part of the case. Director DiNozzo asked me to pull security

footage from the biohazard alarm.

In case it wasn't an accident.

Nobody likes to be messed with.

Uh-oh. That didn't sound good.

Linda Fenwick just reported her husband missing.

Fred Fenwick didn't come home last night.

Linda's worried sick.

She's never spent a night without him. Normally, I'd say six hours is a little

early to panic, but after armed mercenaries break into your house...

Okay, we got no credit card hits, and his phone's still off.

Do we still have access to the neighbor's security camera?

Yeah, nothing from last night, so I widened the timeline.

How far back? Two weeks before the break-in.

The same SUV keeps driving past the Fenwick house. Maybe another neighbor?

I don't think so. The driver also kept parking across the street, never got out

of the car.

They're watching the house.

More likely watching Greg look.

He's being followed. No plates, no clear shot of the driver, and no sign of the

SUV since. It's disappeared.

And Greg's disappeared.

And all the neighbors are destroying evidence.

Which brings us to today's slideshow.

Slideshow?

People who tried to hide DNA.

Well, that's catchy. Couldn't sleep, so I started looking at...

different cases where DNA asks specific questions, like... Who's your daddy?

A woman's body is melted in a vat. Who is the father of her unborn child?

We also have, who's your mommy?

Whose rotting corpse is that?

Who needs a kidney?

These are all very different questions.

Maybe one of them applies to your dinner guests.

Just trying to help. I got lunch on the hill.

If you solve the case before dessert, shoot me a text.

He put a lot of effort into this.

Yeah, maybe a little too much.

Does he work in our case?

Speaking of our case, oh, Bola just came back.

Greg Fenwick's car was found at the bottom of a ravine.

With Greg still inside.

I can't believe he's gone.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Doesn't seem real.

Mrs. Fenwick, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt your husband?

Any reason?

What?

The police said Greg had a heart attack while he was driving.

Preliminary findings suggest that he did.

But after everything that's happened the last few days... You think his death is

connected to the break-in?

Well, three of your dinner guests were all caught destroying some kind of

evidence.

I don't understand. What does that have to do with Greg?

Maybe Greg figured out what your guests were hiding.

First my friends, now Greg.

You'd think everyone in my life was keeping secrets from me.

There's also this.

Someone was following your husband. You recognize that vehicle?

No. But Greg wasn't mixed up in anything dangerous. He would have told me.

You sure?

He died this morning.

And now you want me to believe that I didn't know my own husband?

You know, for years, people joked that our marriage was too good to be true,

that it couldn't possibly be real.

It was real, Agent McGee.

We're done here.

You can let yourself out.

What if that's exactly why he kept you in the dark?

Excuse me? Knowing something could put my wife in danger, I would do everything

I could to keep her out of it, not because I didn't trust her, because I

love her.

I must finally please if there's anything else.

Last year, I noticed a little brass key on his keychain.

It was a key I didn't recognize, and I asked him what it opened.

He just shrugged and said it was work stuff.

You think he was connected to that break-in?

I don't know, but we'll find out.

Well, if it isn't my favorite autopsy gremlin.

I said I wasn't going to call you that anymore. That's the only reason I'm

letting you crash on my couch.

If it isn't my favorite medical examiner. Much better. Now if we can

just get you to stop setting the thermostat to ice age. Well, as soon as

you stop throwing away my eggs two days after the Best Buy date. That means

they're expired, Tony.

Does it?

Can I help you with something? Yes.

I actually just came by to see how autopsy was going.

Oh. Okay.

Didn't this guy used to have hair?

He did. And now, I have it. Ah, I knew it.

Nobody's hair is that optimistic.

His heart is the more interesting story.

The coroner listed cause of death as fatal arrhythmia.

I can smell that butt coming a mile away. But Casey found traces of a very

sophisticated poison in his blood.

This was not natural causes. This was... Murder.

I will bet you the good pillow that whoever broke into that house has

something to do with it. Not my department.

Not yours either, now that I think about it. We just have to find that mystery

key. It wasn't on his keychain.

Well, lucky for you, I found it.

Oh.

So you did.

Ha!

Where was it? He had it on him.

But his body was naked when he was transferred.

It was.

So where was it?

The oldest hiding place in the book?

I'm gonna go brief Torres.

Actually, that's my job.

Wash my hands.

The manager confirms the key belongs to one of the storage units here, under the

husband's name. Yeah, headed to it now.

Want me to get you to talk to the wife again?

Uh, no. She has enough to process without murder.

Well, that's what Director Donoso said after he briefed me on Jimmy's autopsy

instead of, you know, Jimmy.

Is it just me, or does our new director seem a little confused on which job he

was actually hired to do? Right?

But since he's so interested in the little people, might as well make it

work for me.

I'm pitching him a couple undercover ideas.

Getting tired of the office?

No, I'm just tired of all my special skills going to waste.

Name one.

I can hold my breath for four minutes.

Oh.

Was the director impressed?

He seemed actually kind of jealous.

I think he's worried I might be cooler than him.

Well, maybe someone's projecting.

I'm just saying.

All right, this is it. Keith.

No way.

I bought lunch.

What? I only had, like, a side salad.

I didn't even finish the salad.

Oh, yuck, yuck, yuck.

That's not a good sign.

All right, you go first.

Why me? Because I touched the bud key.

Yeah, it's either a dead body in there or a lot of dead bodies.

I guess that depends on how you define body.

Yeah.

That sounds about right.

Ah,

excellent. Thank you, Brent.

Hey, if it's not too much trouble, I'll take a Jenny Shepard special.

Large black coffee, nine sugars.

It's good to be the king.

Oh, gosh.

You kind of...

I thought you were.

With the silver mane coming out of the dark, there's... Never mind.

You, uh, you said you wanted to see me?

Kind of in the middle of a case, but, uh, looks like you are, too.

Yeah.

Have a seat.

My case will give you nightmares.

Yours? Well, here we got a serial killer. Those give people nightmares,

too. And Academy Award nominations.

Silence of the Lambs, Taxi Driver, Seven.

Except we don't think the husband was killing people. Nobody could get away

with that many murders.

Abby could.

We're thinking the eye collection is more of an Ed Gein type thing.

I could live with that. Robbing cemeteries. Nice pull, by the way.

Thank you.

Of course, there is another option. Maybe this is business, not a hobby.

The black market in corneas is almost as big as the kidney trade.

Smart. Thank you.

What's the wife think?

Not much at the moment. Her therapist has her heavily medicated. Her best lead

right now is this guy.

He's been following the husband for a few weeks.

Could be one of the commandos doing recon before the break-in? That's the

consensus. Hmm.

You got a bolo out? Yep, we did.

We'll get him.

All right.

Well, if you need someone to task a satellite, I got a guy.

It's good to be the king.

Did you just wink at me?

I did.

And I instantly regretted it.

No, don't. It's charming.

You're gonna make me blush.

This is starting to get weird. A little. Yeah.

Got the next four boxes and about a hundred more to go.

Where do you want them?

I mean, does anyone actually want a hundred jars of pig eyeballs?

Pig eyes?

Not human?

Oh, you would make a horrible veterinarian.

So where exactly does someone get this amount of pig eyeballs?

Uh, pretty much any biological supply house.

A lot of labs use them for biomedical research.

And psychopaths keep them as trophies? I actually don't think they're trophies. I

think the husband was soaking the eyes in those jars in order to try to extract

a retinal enzyme from their vitreous fluid.

Well, that explains everything.

And by everything, I mean nothing. What if I told you that this particular

enzyme was used in illicit drug manufacturing?

Which means if someone tried to buy it... The DEA would flag the purchase.

But nobody is watching the pig-eye supply chain. This is a low-tech way to

get a high-tech product.

The husband was making drugs.

Probably opioids.

And seeing as the neighbors were all bringing evidence, they're probably all

in on it. His poor wife.

She was already told that her husband's probably a serial killer. I really don't

want to throw a drug dealer at her, too. Yeah, I hear that.

Uh, speaking of jobs nobody wants, I hear that Ziva deputized you.

To be DiNozzo's babysitter.

How's that going?

A little surprising, actually.

I mean, he's nothing like his reputation.

He's self-aware, respectful, mature.

Well, he's also good luck. His satellite just picked up that mystery man who was

tailing our husband.

So who do we think this guy is again?

Maybe the husband's buyer.

Maybe a rival dealer.

A wig maker.

We'll find out soon enough. Why does it take to order a scone? The real Walter

White didn't mind being bold.

I just feel bad for the wife.

They were like the perfect couple, you know? I was gonna ask them what their

secret was.

Well, you dodged the bullet there, which is another one of my special skills, by

the way.

Are you gonna help me pitch the director on some more tactical assignments or

what?

To be honest with you, I'm not sure I want to add any more to his plate.

I'm worried about him as is.

Worried about what?

Look, I've watched three directors do that job, okay? There is a lot of

delicate politics involved.

And with Tony, it's like going back to high school and the kid that pulled the

fire alarm is now the principal, you know?

I mean, he's going to do great, but I'm worried he's going to make some serious

enemies on the Hill.

That's what friends are for, right?

Worry all you want and then just watch his back.

Just like I watch yours if you were a director.

Thanks, man.

Oh, uh, if you really want to do more tactical work, it's coming out of that

cafe right now.

That's our guy.

Suspect's name is Carl Moody, PhD in chemistry.

According to his criminal record, he put it to use making designer drugs in

Florida. Probably cooking for the husband. Why is he still on the street?

Last arrest was 15 years ago, and he's been clean ever since. More like just

never been caught.

Go get him, Tiger. I'll be watching from the cheap seats.

Hey, heard you got our mystery man.

Oh, we did.

Thanks for the assist.

Happy to give you another one in there if you'd like.

Always good to have a second set of eyes.

Tony's tenant number five. Oh, okay.

We're going to be doing a Gibbs rule thing?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Uh, what is happening?

So, Mr.

Moody, is it?

Why'd you throw my latte away?

That was your third of the day, and your captain won.

Says who?

This could be fun, actually.

She's got you on watch duty, doesn't she? I have no idea what you're talking

about.

I'm happy to leave if you two need more time to work this out. You're not going

anywhere except prison.

For what?

Manufacturing a controlled substance, for starters.

Those are eyeballs.

This is murder.

You know this guy, don't you? Look, I'm not cooking again, okay? And yet you

live in a penthouse and you don't seem to have a job. And the guy you were

tailing was murdered.

So what happened? Did you guys get into business together but then have some

kind of falling out? And you crashed a dinner party like it was Zero Dark

Thirty?

Look, I'd love to talk to you, but I can't.

What's going on? Why is Tony interrogating our suspect?

Good question. Well, so far, he's pretty good.

Well, look at that. We got a teacher's pet.

I'm not anyone's pet. I'm just getting to know the guy. You know, I think maybe

Tony's just on autopilot. He's been an agent for so long, you know.

Just needs some time to adjust.

Well, he needs to adjust faster.

And you got to pick a side, Parker.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind some clarification.

Good luck getting it, McGee.

Me? Why me?

You're one of his oldest friends.

Look, all you got to do is just... Suggest to Tony that he, you know, stay

in his lane.

I didn't kill anybody, okay?

But you were right about one thing.

I am still in the drug business.

Shocker. But I've gone legit, okay? I work as a corporate fixer for a drug

company. They simply had a problem that needed fixing.

Go on.

A research tech stole a new formula.

Then he and a bunch of his neighbors figured out a way to sell it on the

black market.

Some butcher got the ingredients.

The research guy did the lab work. This guy handled the shipping. Though I don't

think he was into it for the money.

He was more into taking the drug himself.

But they were all going to make a killing.

The market for what these guys were selling is $30 billion.

What? What are we talking about?

A cure for cancer?

Try a cure for baldness.

Oh, really?

That'd be something.

Like a real cure.

Does it work?

Work? We're talking full regrowth in six months.

Wow. Do you know how many people would kill for that?

I don't know.

I mean, not me, not yet, but I do like to plan ahead.

You do realize this is a murder investigation and you just gave us a

motive?

Not really. I didn't need to kill anybody or crash any dinner party to get

the formula back.

I already got it back two weeks before any of that happened.

And I can prove it.

Okay. Thank you.

That was the drug company VP.

She confirmed.

Moody works for them. And their head of security just confirmed the rest of his

story. Research tech stole the formula from the shampoo division.

Moody stole it back. Weeks ago. DA already has a case. Well, then, who

killed this guy?

And who broke into his house?

I don't know, but I know how we can find out. And it's time sensitive.

Biggie, on my six. Beep, beep, skinny.

When our whole case blew up, I started hearing Donoso's voice in my head.

That's unsettling. Well, he was saying that weird stuff usually solves the

case, so I leaned into my weird.

Cleaning. Your apartment would disagree.

Not places, circuitry. Nothing I hate more than a dusty motherboard.

And this robot vacuum's gearbox was filthy. But when I started cleaning this

puppy's innards, I triggered some kind of fail-safe.

Vacuums have fail-safes? This one did, and it started sending a massive

encrypted file over the Internet.

Do we know where it's who?

good question can you trace it if i could i would have sprinted up two

flights of stairs and loafers now chop chop before the transmission stops all

right running my private trace macros now you need to make those not private

one of these days i'll be happy to trade for what telling dinoso that he's

annoying everyone yeah i heard you got nominated to do that keep your macros

i'll keep my job and you gotta hit we got a location ncs

Doesn't look like anyone's home.

Hands up.

Come out slowly.

Who let you down here?

Your mother.

And dinner's ready.

Are you a Mervin?

Dorf?

Call me Dead Drop.

Hard pass.

You recognize this vacuum cleaner?

Yeah, somebody just triggered his failsafe.

I figured someone with a badge would be showing up soon.

What does this fail-safe do?

He asked you a question.

Yeah, but I'm not answering until he calls me dead job.

Yeah, well, I can hold you in as a suspect to a murder investigation.

Okay. Fine. Cool your jets.

I was hired to hack every smart home device with a camera in the two-mile

area. That fail-safe was an automatic transmission back to me in case a unit

was discovered. Who hired you?

Don't know. Don't care.

Not as long as they pay.

You don't care that you could be breaking the law?

Well, that's the thing.

I'm not.

You ever read the terms of service on your smart devices lately?

Enough loopholes to drive a truck through.

Or, in my case, unauthenticated remote access.

Take a look.

That'll teach Ring to fire me.

What, his whole life?

No. These teams are sent passively back every three months. My client was

worried that active surveillance would be caught, which is nuts.

I mean, I was hacking soccer moms, not the KGB.

But any chance you have this thing's footage from two days ago?

Um... You got it yet?

Yeah. It's coming in now. I just need to clean up a few things.

Something wrong?

No, it's just the vacuum company pushed out a firmware update a few days ago.

Messed with a bug.

I love a good firmware update.

And I love that you love that.

Okay, got it right here.

The vacuum was on its charging station when this was recorded.

Remind me to get rid of every smart device I own that has a camera.

Yeah, same.

That gas worked quickly.

And then come our commandos.

It's the weirdest break-in I've ever seen.

And we're watching it from a vacuum.

What's this guy doing?

No idea, but we've got enough for facial recognition.

CIA. You guys certainly get around.

I'm not surprised NCIS followed the breadcrumbs back to us. We keep that

hacker under surveillance.

Saw your agent show up at his door. You're using him as a cutout.

To do your dirty work. Since when is protecting our country dirty? Ever since

Congress said domestic ops were a big no-no for you boys.

Unless the matter involves foreign intelligence agents.

What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave your chain of command.

Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.

Last year, the CIA became aware of a potentially massive infiltration of our

country by long-term, deep-cover operatives. How massive? We don't know.

What's the endgame?

We don't know.

All we know is it looks like they've been here for years and it's probably

not for the barbecue.

We finally got a lead on a cell, but all we had was a zip code.

So you got your hacker to bug every house in it? Even that didn't help.

These agents are ridiculously good at staying hidden.

At least until one of them screwed up.

So you're telling me the guy with the toupee was a deep cover spy?

Your skepticism just means he was a damn good one.

But luckily for us...

Also, Vane, that hair thing, you really think a lab tech and a butcher would

have been able to pull off a counterfeit drug ring by themselves?

Well, when you say it like that, no.

The husband decided to help them out. That's when he popped up on our radar.

Why not arrest him? Wanted to see who he was talking to.

We had three months of surveillance on that vacuum.

At least until the manufacturer pushed out that firmware update that just about

wiped all of our data.

Okay, let me get this straight. So you gassed a dinner party because of a

software patch?

We needed to neutralize the scene. The target would disappear if they knew we

were on to them.

Except you left one in the pantry this time, 007.

We don't know why she didn't go down. But we still think it's recoverable. We

can pin everything on the husband's drug ring.

Including his murder?

We know you poisoned him.

Actually, that wasn't us.

So who was it?

Let's just say we have another file you might be interested in.

This one's from the pet feeder.

Have you lost your mind?

A hair loss drug? You risked exposing us over a hair loss drug? You're

overreacting. Exposing us.

Lovely Linda was a spy too.

Major Cross said they were never actually even married. Just so you could

ruin everything.

You're done.

I will talk to the guys and I will...

And I need to stop.

No, I mean done.

Did you put something in my coffee?

And I didn't poison the coffee.

It was your toothpaste, you amateur.

Well, she's spunky.

The Nightingale is on the way to arrest her now.

Yeah. Call him back.

Why? She already thinks that the drug company broke into her house. So have

them offer her condolences for her husband's heart attack and tell her we

closed the case.

Hopefully her handler buys it. Doesn't pull her from the field.

What do you know that I don't?

I know something's coming down the pike.

Something bad.

Very bad.

Something a lot of very smart people are very worried about.

Right now, she's our only lead. Listen, I'm not happy about letting her go.

But we'll get her eventually.

This is good for us, Tim.

Yeah. Was there something else?

Yeah.

Um... I was wondering... Wondering when I'm gonna realize I'm

the director and not an agent anymore.

Well, we were all wondering that. Yeah. And you drew the short straw.

You always been this good?

Well, here's the thing, Tim.

This job is like the drummer from Spinal Tap.

It kills people, but it'll kill your soul first unless you find a way to blow

off some steam.

Vance boxed. Jenny lit up the town.

You know what I like to do?

I like to bust bad guys.

So I'm gonna do my job as director, and when I need to take a little break, blow

off a little steam...

I'm going to go bust some bad guys with you.

And it's not a distraction.

It's the only way I know how to survive this job.

Can you live with that?

Well, as long as you never pull the biohazard alarm again.

I know that was you.

Why would I do something like that?

Personnel inventory.

You want to see who would run away from the problem? Who would run towards it?

Beats Myers-Briggs.

Have you always been this good?

Classic Donozo.

And not only can I live with that, I am not sure how I ever lived without him.

Well, I wouldn't get too comfortable.

The only reason you're not doing this job is because the Secretary of the Navy

has another one planned for you.

She does?

Yep. Good job.

Hurt.

Wait, what?