- Having not heard anything from Ziva, Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Abby wonder; each starts sniffing and digging; they trace her to Somalia. Gibbs, Tony, and McGee go there; Tony and McGee become caught; Gibbs springs them all; they all go home.
- Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Ducky investigate the death of a petty officer aboard a Naval vessel; later Tony and McGee screen potential replacements for Ziva; nobody in the gang has heard from Ziva, so Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Abby all start sniffing and digging around; they trace her to a Jordanian cargo ship, which sank in a storm off the coast of Somalia, reportedly with no survivor. Tony urges Gibbs to stop Saleem, then the team makes a case to Gibbs and Vance, who reluctantly approves an "investigative" mission to Somalia, where (as a part of a plan) Saleem captures Tony and McGee, to whom Saleem administers a truth serum. Saleem also reunites Tony and McGee with Ziva, whom Saleem has tortured. Gibbs reverts to his sniper mode and gets out the three musketeers, then they all return to Washington, DC, where they, emotionally drained and thoroughly exhausted, receive a rousing welcome.—DocRushing
- Somalia
Back in the underground prison where last we saw Ziva, the torturer tells someone they will soon talk. He prepares a truth serum and we see who he's talking to....
It's Tony.
Tony is tied to a chair and bloodied. The terrorist injects him with a truth cocktail. Tony tells him he'll be dead soon.
The torturer is Saleem Ulman. Tony tells him who he is. Saleem thinks NCIS cost the lives of several of his people. He asks Tony's mission. Tony tries not to talk, and gives him a vague answer. We see the team taking down a methed-up sailor from May as Tony gives us background narration.
Tony mentions Ziva and Mossad and NCIS.
Saleem wants to know why the team is there. Tony babbles, then says he doesn't know where the rest of his team is, and he doesn't care.
Tony was driving in the desert without backup. Tony says there's only one force that can make a man give up all thought of his own well-being: vengeance.
Tony tells Saleem he's there to kill him.
Saleem says he has a B.S. from Yale. He knows the football team's record. He asks Tony how he picked him as the target of his bloodlust.
We jump back to June at NCIS. Tony tries to get McGee to fix his TV. Gibbs joins them, saying they have a dead petty officer. McGee takes a deep breath and tells Gibbs they think it's time they fill the empty chair.
Gibbs takes the personnel files and tells Tony and McGee to pick.
On the ship, they have a petty officer who was confined to the boat for two months for punishment but still managed to OD on meth.
Back in Somalia: Tony gives us the 411 on Duckie who, back in June, examines the body.
Duckie asks if they've heard from Ziva. Nope.
Back at the office, Tony and McGee interview prospective team members, all women. Naturally, Tony hits on all of them. He likes Claire, a DEA Agent with an extra firm handshake who says she left the DEA for personal reasons. They bring her to Gibbs and wait outside, saying she's unflappable. Claire comes out crying. Strike one.
Back in captivity, Tony says it might easier to find a new drummer Spinal Tap than to replace Ziva. Saleem asks why Tony isn't looking for her. Tony says Ziva is dead.
Saleem taunts Tony by telling him about his caffeine addiction and drinking from his canteen in front of him. He tells Tony the chemicals are probably making him want to talk. He tells him resisting only makes adrenaline flow, speeding the process.
Saleem asks Tony who's in charge.
Tony tells him about Director Vance.
Flash to July, Vance asking Gibbs about the meth ring they're investigating. Gibbs asks Vance if he's heard anything about Ziva. Vance says no, he hasn't heard anything, not even from her dad, the director of Mossad. We can tell Gibbs doesn't believe him.
McGee interviews the same petty officer who Tony and McGee tackled in May when he was methed out. He claims he didn't take meth, and thinks someone must have slipped it to him.
Tony observes with a female agent. She keeps Tony on his toes with questions.
Gibbs talks to Chad Dunham from Chad via satellite camera. Gibbs asks about a group whom Chad says has recently picked up stakes, but might have been traveling with a woman.
Tony presents the folder of the woman he was just talking to to Gibbs.
Tony asks about his conversation with Chad. Gibbs says they're tracking terrorist training camps in the Sahara. Dunham said Mossad presence has increased in Northern Africa, maybe cleaning up a mission with causalities. Tony says the word 'Sahara' means Desert in Arabic, so the Sahara desert is really the Desert desert.
McGee and Tony have dinner. McGee mentions Gibbs signed off on the new girl. Tony doesn't appear to be listening. Then he stands up and walks away, lost in thought. Tony thinks it's not normal that they haven't heard from Ziva in so long. He wonders if something's stopping her from contacting them. He thinks Gibbs is thinking that, too. He's going to start digging. McGee tells him he can't do it alone.
Saleem kicks an unconscious man on the prison floor. He tells Tony his partner's mistake was following Tony's lead. He kicks the man and rolls him over so we see his face. It's McGee.
Saleem asks how they found him.
Jump to the lab in August, with Abby. They want her help, but she's already on it. They know that Gibbs thinks the director knows more than he's letting on. As they lay out their options - hack into Mossad or hack into Vance - new girl Becky walks in.
And doesn't like the sound of it. She says she's done.
Tony is interrupted on the phone, writing down "Damocles" and a town in Africa. He's interrupted by Officer Heather Kincaid, a super hot job candidate.
Gibbs talks to the meth petty officer again. Tony brings Heather by to observe. As Gibbs continues the interrogation, Tony explains that the guy had a heart condition and the meth nearly killed him. Then he and Gibbs say at nearly the same time that the guy is actually the dealer and dosed himself to hide suspicion. Two people died before they figured it out. Tony tells Heather they're not hiring right now.
In the lab, Abby has cracked into Mossad. They found information from Ziva's fried laptop from her apartment on a terrorist camp in North Africa run by Saleem Ulman. Abby says Director David read the info and put a team on a freighter to North Africa called the Damocles. It's a cargo ship that could be a direct supply line to Saleem. Tony says there's no record of it docking.
Gibbs comes in and explains why: it went down in a storm months ago. There were no survivors. They think Ziva is dead.
Tony says after that, business as usual lost all meaning. Tony watches life in the office go by in a blur then finally tells Gibbs that Saleem needs to be stopped.
Tony, Abby and McGee explain Saleem's supply chain to Vance and Gibbs. From the freighter manifest they think they found the clue to tracking them, one personal item shipped there at high risk. Abby holds up her favorite drink: Caf-Pow.
Back in the desert, Saleem throws his canteen of Caf-pow against the wall and storms out as Tony taunts him.
With Saleem out of the room, Tony asks McGee if he's doing OK. McGee says he is. Tony tells him to wait for his signal.
Saleem returns with another prisoner with a hood over their head. He wants the names and locations of all the NCIS agents in the area. He tells Tony whoever talks will live and the other will die. He removes the prisoner's hood. It's Ziva.
Saleem leaves and Tony smiles at Ziva. "Well, how was your summer?"
(The black and white freeze frame into commercial shows Abby hugging a woman.)
Ziva tells Tony he shouldn't have come. She checks that McGee is OK. She asks why they're there if they thought she was dead. He says McGee thought she was alive. She asks Tony again why he is there. He struggles to hold back words and says he couldn't live without her. Then he adds that she should know he's taken some kind of truth serum and she shouldn't ask anything she doesn't want to know the answer to.
She says she didn't deserve to be rescued. She tells Tony to tell Saleem everything he wants to hear, she's prepared to die. McGee says that's not how the plan works. Tony winks at her. She says the terrorists have anti-aircraft missiles and lots of artillery, what do they have?
Back to NCIS, where Tony tries to convince Vance they've located Saleem. Vance says they can't send SEALs on Caf-Pow alone. He says he wishes the circumstances were different. He gives Gibbs a knowing look.
Out in the hall, Gibbs asks Tony if that's it. He suggests maybe they send some agents to the region to gather some intel, change the circumstances. Tony gets it, "wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Bob's your uncle." He volunteers himself and McGee for the secret fact finding mission.
Out in the desert, Tony and McGee drive up to a town that looks deserted - the same one we know they're now being held captive in. McGee starts to call it in, but armed men come and take them.
Back in the prison, Ziva clarifies. "Wait, you got captured on purpose?"
Yes, Tony says. They just have to wait to be rescued. It'll start after they fail to contact, but Tony doesn't know how long help will take to get there.
There's noise outside and Saleem comes back with a knife. He holds it to Ziva's throat. She tells him to kill her and use the Americans for leverage.
Then McGee goes all Karate Kid and does a "sweep the leg" on Saleem, knocking him to the ground and the knife out of his hand. But before McGee can do more, Saleem pulls a gun on him. Tony yells stop, telling Saleem there's one thing he hasn't told him, the part Tony plays on the team - the wild card. He's thinking about "True Lies," when Arnie's shot full of truth serum then breaks free just in time.
Saleem stands over Tony, by the window, and says he's lying, that he's still restrained. Tony says he didn't say he'd be the one to kill him. "Remember when I told you my boss was a sniper?"
A bullet zings through the window and Saleem falls, we zoom over the town and up a hill to Gibbs peering through a sniper scope.
McGee gets up to free Tony and Ziva, and Gibbs takes out another man who comes to investigate. Tony and McGee help Ziva down the hallway. In front of them, another man is shot down. They round the corner to see Gibbs standing there. "Let's go home," he says.
Cut to NCIS, the team bloodied and bruised, riding the elevator up. The office waits for them and greets them with a round of applause. Abby hugs Ziva, Tony looks on.
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