Episode: Up in Smoke, Episode 9.23.
Air Date: May 8, 2012.
The Victim: We don’t really have one this time. Another perp bites it.
Emotionally Traumatized, But Ultimately Irrelevant, Witness Who Finds the Body: Special Agent Dorneget is at the dentist. He fractured his dental implant. Eating popcorn. The dentist removes the implant, and then is a little shocked that the implant is hollow. He opens it and pulls out a device. Dorney is horrified. “Was that in my tooth? Did somebody bug my mouth?”
Okay then.
Plot Recap: In the squad room, the team is looking for Harper Dearing, the terrorist targeting Navy ships. Palmer arrives and Tony and McGee pretend to be busy. Palmer is trolling for info on what Abby has planned for his bachelor party. Tony and McGee are not spilling, but they mess with him some. Although, as Palmer exits, Tony and McGee admit that neither of them know what Abby is planning.
Ziva returns with Dorney and a statement from the dentist. And the evidence. Dorney nervously approaches Gibbs and tries to make assurances, and Gibbs is not impressed. He orders him to stay in the squad room. Dorney is not optimistic about his future.
In the lab, Abby identifies the device as a listening device. Ducky snarkily remarks that somebody thinks Dorney is more interesting than NCIS does. But he scoffs at the idea that the device has been in Dorney’s tooth for the period of years he had the implant. Ducky thinks a device like that would only last a few months in a human mouth. We learn Dorney got a call from his dentist saying that the implant had been recalled and needed to be replaced. But when Dorney called his dentist, he couldn’t get a return call. So, he went to the new dentist and that’s where we are.
Gibbs asks if Abby can trace the bug’s signal. She says it would be really short range. She suspects it used Dorney’s cell phone as a booster. Then she’s amazed at something techno-babbly. Loose translation: the device’s battery was kept charged by the pressure of Dorney chewing. Gibbs suggests looking for patents on the tech. And sure enough, Harper Dearing owns the patent.
In the squad room, the team reminds the audience that Dearing is the CEO of a VC firm, and a terrorist who is using faulty wiring on Navy ships to target them for thermite bombs. The agents assume Dorney was bugged because he’s a floater who works in all areas at NCIS and he’s a talker.
Dr. Ryan, the Pentagon psy-ops specialist and Gibbs’s current girlfriend, arrives. She comes bearing files. As we learned last episode, Dearing’s company is being run by Vincent Maple. Dr. Ryan has NSA intercepts of Dearing’s last communications with Maple from a year ago. Tony and Ziva leave to find Maple. McGee will go arrest Dorney’s first dentist. Gibbs will grill Dr. Ryan on how she knew what the team was getting into. She says DOD flagged Abby’s patent search. Everyone is looking for Dearing after all. Dr. Ryan has already cleared things with SecNav to help out at NCIS.
At Dearing’s company, Maple continues to maintain that he didn’t speak with Dearing. Tony shows him their correspondence and says it sounds suspiciously like code with its references to mai-tais and surfing. Maple claims he had no idea what Dearing was talking about when he got the message. Maple says Dearing had been saying odd things for months before he left and might have been losing his marbles.
Gibbs and Dr. Ryan talk to Dorney’s dentist, Dr. Berman. Dr. Ryan goes ahead and preliminarily explains that she’s there to tell if he’s lying. Gibbs shows the dentist Dorney’s confidentiality waiver, short-circuiting the doctor-patient privilege argument. Dr. Berman admits he changed Dorney’s implant based on sterility concerns with the manufacturer. Gibbs asks about the bug and Dr. Berman denies it. But Dr. Ryan calls lie. Gibbs shows a picture of Dearing. Dr. Berman denies knowing him, Dr. Ryan calls lying again.
McGee interrupts and says there’s a call for Dr. Berman. Gibbs says to take a message, but McGee, shaken, says it’s Dearing, and he’s on a screen in MTAC.
The group decamps to MTAC. Dearing is on-screen and greets Dr. Berman. Dearing is already hilarious. He outs his own guy and then tells him he has permission to tell NCIS whatever, because “your cooperation may well carry some weight with the judge.” Dr. Ryan calls this gracious. Dearing knows both her and Gibbs by sight. And Dearing called to speak with Gibbs. He wants to know his enemy. Gibbs says he’s not his enemy and advises Dearing to turn himself in. Dr. Ryan wants to know why Dearing would target innocent Navy personnel. Dearing blames Gibbs and called because he thinks people should know it’s all Gibbs’s fault. Then he hangs up.
Tony and Ziva arrive to see the entire office scanning for bugs. Dorney is sitting in Tony’s chair while Dr Ryan grills him. He claims he hasn’t discussed any classified material in the previous two weeks. Gibbs wants to know how Dearing knew Dr. Berman was at NCIS (that feels easy- even routine surveillance of the office would have picked up McGee collaring Dr. Berman). Dr. Ryan wants to know how Dearing punched through MTAC’s firewall (that feels harder).
Gibbs angrily dismisses Dorney. Poor Dorney. Tony and Ziva report that Maple wasn’t much help other than to confirm Dearing is nuts.
Palmer wanders through talking to Breena about her telling Abby to get him a tattoo. Everyone stares until he leaves.
More germane to the actual plot, McGee arrives and says he spoke to Dr. Berman. He admitted to bugging Dorney. He said that one of Dearing’s goon’s roughed him up and said they’d kill him if he didn’t cooperate. Of course, Dearing also paid him $10k in cash. McGee has a sketch of the goon. Tony goes for a BOLO. Ziva will take the cash to Abby for prints.
Dr. Ryan reminds Gibbs this isn’t his fault. Gibbs knows that and makes clear she knows he knows that. But she thinks Dearing might believe otherwise.
Palmer visits the lab and suggests that the Dearing caper counsels canceling the bachelor party. But I think this is more about his own nervousness than anything to do with the case. Abby declines. Non-refundable deposits and all that. Abby empathizes that the party feels a little tone deaf, but they have all learned from working around all the death that life must go on. Palmer gets angry and says he needs to know what’s happening at the party. Abby differentiates need to know versus wants to know. Then she gets a facial rec hit. She has been running Dearing’s face to try and get a sense of where he’s traveled in the past to maybe find him now. Eerily, the hit she gets is from the Navy Yard. Even more eerily, it’s a live feed.
Tony and McGee and coordinate a full lockdown of the yard and a search via walkie-talkie. Gibbs looks up and sees sniper patrol, but the search teams report no hits. Ziva and Dorney report that Dearing signed in at the walk-in gate as a civilian contractor and had all the necessary credentials. He left almost immediately, and all he brought in with him was a briefcase. They look at the footage, and it’s clear Dearing wanted to be seen. He looks right at the camera. He also left a flower from a nearby bush on the bench. Gibbs walks over to the bush line, reaches in with a glove, and pulls out a toy boat. It’s a scale model of a boat Gibbs built in his basement and named the Kelly.
At Gibbs’s house. Dr. Ryan reminds Gibbs that Dearing is just trying to get in his head. Gibbs is aware. Dr. Ryan has to admit she likes Dearing’s style. Since it’s vintage psy-ops. Dr. Ryan and Gibbs talk about Dearing’s son Evan. As we learned last episode, Evan was in the Navy. As we learn this episode, Even was killed in a suicide attack on a ship in port. Gibbs already looked into it. But Dr. Ryan has more. There was a defect in an early warning system that could have stopped the attack. The Navy was in the middle of replacing the system. Dr. Ryan thinks this is about payback, particularly given the way all the attacks exploit flaws in the fleet. Dr. Ryan thinks Dearing is trying to teach the Navy a lesson. He’s crazy and obsessed. Hence the fixation on Gibbs: every hero needs a bad guy. And Dearing clearly has a bigger game.
Gibbs and Dr. Ryan have another fight about what she discloses when. She reminds Gibbs that, while she might keep her mind games persona fully active at all times, it’s not like he turns off either. She says she has been in his basement and she knows he marinates in “it,” which I take to mean his misery and his sense of responsibility. Then she suggests that if he wants her to let him in, he’s going to need to reciprocate.
Tony calls. The BOLO came back on the thug who pushed Dorney’s dentist around. Local LEOs spotted the car. Gibbs hangs up. Dr. Ryan calls it, “Saved by the cell.”
Tony and Ziva are in a parking lot, staking out the car and discussing Tony’s assumption that Dr. Ryan is at Gibbs’s house. Ziva thinks they should gossip less now that Gibbs and Dr. Ryan are official. The discussion ends when Gibbs slides into the backseat.
The car is registered to Frederick Fountain, a former cop. He was kicked off the force for taking bribes. Tony is sniffing the air while making this report and points out, in so many words, that Gibbs smells like Dr. Ryan’s perfume.
Fountain comes out and makes NCIS. He tries to run but doesn’t get far. He’s panicked, and not because of NCIS. He says he’ll tell them whatever they want to know including the next attack, but they have to get out of there. Two shots pierce Fountain’s chest and he goes down. Gibbs spins, gun out, but he can’t find the shooter.
Ducky and Palmer are examining Fountain in autopsy. Palmer pumps Ducky for info on his bachelor party. All he’ll say is Abby asked to borrow the autopsy rotary saw. The one with the longer cord.
Gibbs comes in for an update. Ducky reports that Abby found traces of an explosive on a swab Ducky took from under Fountain’s fingernails. Gibbs recognizes RDX, a very powerful explosive. Ducky says the killer used a frangible round that shattered on impact, and NCIS didn’t locate any shell casings either. So, they have nothing to trace. Although, Ducky does have something. Fountain had in his arm a microchip from the Watcher Fleet. And it was only recently inserted in Fountain.
In the squad room, expository dialogue tells us that, per last episode, Vance is still in Prague at a NATO conference. McGee reports to Gibbs that the microchip is of the Watcher Fleet vintage. It’s the exact same one that came from deceased NCIS Special Agent Levin’s arm. Pyramid, Episode 8.24. Tony figures Dearing bought it, since Sean Latham and Jonathan Cole/Casey Stratton were selling the microchips to the highest bidder. Nature of the Beast, Episode 9.1. Since the chips outlined fleet vulnerabilities, Ziva wonders if NCIS can use it to figure out the next target. Although, Per McGee, all the information has been erased. What’s on the microchip now is in code. Like a separate set of books a front company might use when doing something illegal. It’s money coming from Dearing’s company, and it looks like he’s building something. Ziva notices a repeated number. McGee thinks it looks like a shipping manifest. Gibbs says to send it to Dr. Ryan and to tell her to bring a hard copy to Maple’s office.
At Dearing’s firm, Maple is astonished. The purchases are charged to the company account, but the company has no record of the purchases. He agrees that Dearing is building something. Maple can only think of two possibilities, and only one makes sense: Dearing is making Naval artillery shells. This triggers something in Dr. Ryan and Gibbs catches it. She refuses to talk, though, unless he promises not to be a weirdo. I mean, she says it more eloquently than that, but that’s the gist of it. She walks him outside and tells him that one of the vulnerabilities the Watcher Fleet data exposed involved a tolerance issue in some of the larger Naval gun barrels that use RDX as a propellant. If the shells purchased weren’t exactly to spec, the guns could explode. So, if Dearing is building defective shells and can get them into the supply chain, the Navy could take out their own fleet during exercises. Gibbs still manages to be a weirdo and to fuss at Dr. Ryan, but it’s pretty clear she’s on the side of the angels.
Abby and Dorney are assessing the shell spec situation in the lab. Abby has put together a computer model and blows up a virtual ship. Dorney is concerned that Gibbs is going to send him and his bad teeth to Gitmo. Abby calls Dorney the hero and says he’ll get to show Gibbs when he arrives…right now.
Dorney clenches, but Abby smacks him. Dorney was doing data entry and noticed that the microchip from Fountain’s arm contained a private decryption key. Gibbs fumes at the technobabble and Dorney says he used the microchip to trace Dearing’s call to MTAC. Abby gives Gibbs the unregistered cell phone number that activated the MTAC call. Dorney is talking about waiting for Dearing to call again to trace it, but Gibbs just calls the number. Dorney is chagrined that he didn’t think of it.
Dearing picks up and knows it’s Gibbs (that could just be caller ID, though). He’s impressed that Gibbs found the microchip. Gibbs tries to use the information about Dearing’s son to work him. Gibbs wonders how Evans would feel about Dearing’s collateral damage. Dearing says the few can be sacrificed for the good of the cause. Gibbs wants to know the cause and Dearing is just happy that they’re all paying attention. Gibbs asks what Dearing wants. Dearing hangs up without elaborating, but Abby has a trace. Dorney notes that the street address is the same number that Ziva noted in the microchip documents. Abby smiles and says it’s Dearing’s bomb factory.
I might have taken a bigger team, but either way, the four field agents enter the location Abby traced. It’s an empty warehouse. A security guard appears pushing a cart with a brief case on it. He is surprised to be stopped and does not recognize a photo of Dearing. There’s not enough run time left for a bomb squad scene, so Tony just opens the mysterious case, and nobody dies. The case contains money. Lots and lots of money.
The security guard is processed and in interrogation. The agents are in the squad room. Nobody knows where the equipment that was shipped to the warehouse is now. If Dearing is done making his defective shells, they may already be in the supply chain. McGee leaves to tells Vance and SecNav to cancel any Navy exercises. Ziva will update Navy command. Tony backgrounds the security guard as Ghenna Kozlov, a Russian immigrant and father of three, no record, likes bingo.
Gibbs and Tony visit Kozlov in interrogation. He has worked at the warehouse for a year. He says none of the heavy equipment was ever there. His job is to watch the warehouse and deal with a small case once per month. He had no idea there was money inside. He holds it, waits, and another truck comes and picks it up. In this instance, he got a text that told him to deliver the case to an address on M Street and that a limo would be waiting.
Upstairs, Gibbs hands McGee Kozlov’s cell and tells him to trace the last text. It’s not from the number Gibbs called Dearing at before, and Dearing has already disconnected that cell. This number is registered to a holding company in Dearing’s firm’s name.
Ziva says Vance will land within the hour and he has alerted the fleet about the ammo. Gibbs’s plan is to let Kozlov deliver the money as he was instructed. Tony thinks that post-finals co-eds partying hard on M Street is a scene that will not lend itself to NCIS blending in. McGee reminds everyone that they will need to cancel Palmer’s bachelor party. Palmer overhears as he enters and is all for the party being cancelled. Abby enters dressed like some goth ringmaster, including a fake mustache. Abby is crushed that this grand entrance is all she gets. But Gibbs has an idea, and the party isn’t cancelled at all.
We move to M Street. Dorney is delivering shots, and everyone is doing shots and playing drinking games. I think only Palmer is drinking actual alcohol, though. Which is a shame, because Gibbs is pretty good at quarters, and Palmer is now drunk enough to refer to him as “Leroy.” Ziva is outside on a bench, dressed to kill, and monitoring Kozlov. Palmer stands up to make a toast, and Tony and Gibbs are both legitimately amused at how lit he is. Tony looks at Dorney and says, “I thought you said this was apple juice.” Dorney even watered it down.
The expected limo arrives. The entire team picks up Palmer to take him on a bar crawl that just happens to take them by the limo. Gibbs pulls Ziva to her feet like he’s bringing her along. Kozlov moves toward the limo. Gibbs orders everyone to move. They do. Palmer says, “This is getting real,” and smartly runs in the other direction. It’s a good, quick scene by Brian Dietzen.
The agents pull their guns. Tony opens the limo door. It’s not Dearing. It’s Vincent Maple.
In interrogation, Ziva confronts Maple with his fake ID, and his one-way ticket to Morocco: the land of no extradition treaties. Maple wants a deal. Gibbs asks where Dearing is. Maple denies working with Dearing. But he won’t say what he was doing without a deal. So, Gibbs and Ziva leave. Or they start to leave and then Maple caves. Turns out there was no equipment or secret off-the-books projects. It was just a dummy account Maple set up to embezzle. Dearing wasn’t involved. Maple is quick to point out that the faulty artillery theory was Dr. Ryan’s and Maple let them run with it. Maple thinks the real question that should be asked is how NCIS got a copy of the cooked books.
In the squad room, the team pieces together that Dearing placed an anonymous tip to effectuate the BOLO on Fountain. So, Dearing wanted NCIS to find out about Maple’s scheme. Abby has traced the call and she confirmed that it’s the same cell that led them to the warehouse. She is also adamant that the op doesn’t count as a bachelor party, so Gibbs hands her the ringmaster hat and excuses her (although, Palmer has walked up, quietly overheard, and made himself scarce). Ziva and McGee continue poring through Dearing’s motives for framing Maple, and the best they can come up with is a distraction. But from what?
We shift scenes. Dr. Ryan is chatting with an Admiral Davis via telephone in her office. Gibbs arrives. He’s in a mood. Dr. Ryan goes to playful sarcasm. Gibbs notes that the defective artillery theory was hers. Dr. Ryan plays it off. But Gibbs thinks she did it intentionally. She gets offended, and Gibbs gets angry, because he can usually read people with no issues, but not Dr. Ryan. And it’s made worse because he has mixed business and pleasure and while not a rule #12 violation per se (Never date a co-worker), it’s close enough. It all feels a little head-gamey, because Dr. Ryan notes that a guy who goes with his gut is probably mad when said guy encounters something that needs data. He would like for her to talk like a regular person, but then she throws it back on him as a regular person who doesn’t talk. Dr. Ryan looks way too self-satisfied over her sick burn for this to be a viable relationship going forward.
Gibbs gets a text. It from an unknown number and simply says, “Check.” Dr. Ryan says that Dearing wrote his college thesis on chess. So, Gibbs calls Tony to see if something has happened. Tony was just about to call. He and Ziva just got off the phone with Vance’s security detail. Vance insisted on driving home alone, but he never made it. No one can find him.
To be continued.
Quotables:
“Is that why you called? To quote Twain to your dentist?”
-Gibbs, not caring for Dearing’s literary pretensions.
Ziva-propisms: Ziva says “That boat has already sailed.” Tony calls it “close” and corrects to “ship.”
Tony Awards: Tony refers to the security guard as Yakov Smirnov, the “What a country!” guy from the 80s.
Abby Road: Abby plans a bachelor party.
McNicknames: None.
Ducky Tales: Ducky talks about German spies in WWII.
The Rest of the Story:
-Dorney was last seen in Need to Know, Episode 9.17.
-Palmer selected Abby as his best man in Rekindled, Episode 9.21.
-Dr. Ryan refers to Tony as “Wink” because she reminds him of a game show host. See The Tell, Episode 9.18.
-Gibbs built the Kelly over Seasons 4 and 5 (Sandblast, Episode 4.7; Ex-File, Episode 5.3)and gave it to Mike Franks some time before Season 7. The Kelly re-appeared in Season 7 after Franks had to kill some guys and set them adrift on the boat as a message to Gibbs. Outlaws and In-Laws, Episode 7. 6. Gibbs named the boat after his deceased daughter. Hiatus, Part One, Episode 3.23.
-The expression on Gibbs’s face as he looks for Fountain’s shooter is similar to the look he had when Ari killed Kate. He’s not scared for himself, but he’s worried about his ability to protect his team from a killer he can’t see. Twilight, Episode 2.23.
-The Watcher Fleet microchips were explored and explained in Nature of the Beast, Episode 9.1.
-As we know, Palmer is not a coward. About Face, Episode 5.17. But he knows his limitations.
-It looked like the cast had a lot of fun filming that faux-bachelor party scene.
Casting Call: Richard Schiff plays Harper Dearing. He has been on a ton of stuff, but you probably know him best as Toby from The West Wing.
Man, This Show Is Old: I didn’t see anything that dated this one.
MVP: Palmer, for expertly fleeing the potential firefight this time.
Rating: Another strong transitional episode. Dearing is playing games and is genuinely menacing. The bachelor party ruse, while a failure from the standpoint of catching Dearing, was nonetheless entertaining. The Gibbs/Dr. Ryan stuff has gone stale, but that was the only negative. Eight Palmers.
Next Time: The Season 9 finale.
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Alex Barfield is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. When not practicing law or writing about NCIS, he chases his children around, volunteers at his church, grumbles about Atlanta sports, and looks for other television shows to obsess over. He can be reached at albarfie@hotmail.com or on Twitter at @AlexBarfield1 or on Facebook.
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