'NCIS' recap- 'Troll'

NCIS opened with a young couple eating pie at a diner. They are both being romantic until he gives her a ring after only eleven dates. Before the conversation goes further, they see a car coming for the window and immediately run for cover. When the girl stands up, she runs to the car to see a woman who is bleeding from the neck.

Jake and Ellie walk into the building where Tony and Tim are already at Tim’s desk. They tease Jake good naturedly about coming to see “the gang,” and Tony tries to make rhymes out of his name but it doesn’t work when he hasn’t had coffee. They tell Jake that his “BFF” Gibbs is not there yet. Jake tries to point out that they only talk briefly on the phone and he considers the entire team his gang. Tim is just wondering if they are doing another covert op before Gibbs comes in to say they have a case. Jake volunteers to go with them.

Tim tells Gibbs the victim is Navy Ensign Janine Wilt and Jimmy and Ducky see that she bled to death from a cut to the throat. She was bleeding heavily when she crashed into the diner. There is no GPS to show where she came from and the only clue they find is an Arlington high school t-shirt, which is located in the opposite direction from where she lived in Fairfax. Ellie and Gibbs go to the school to learn more.

A young man named Brad takes Ellie and Gibbs to talk to Coach Curry, who worked with Wilt coaching a basketball team. She is shocked to find out Janine is dead. Coach Curry tells them that Janine left the school around 11 pm and that she was fine. Janine didn’t have a relationship as far as she knew and she was private about her Navy job. She wonders how she will tell the girls on the basketball team about Janine’s death.

While Gibbs and Ellie try to figure out what is going on, Tim calls to tell them he found out she worked as a Cyber Warfare Engineer for Naval Intelligence and that he couldn’t find anything on her personnel file up to two weeks prior. They think something involving her work could have led to her death.

Vance and Gibbs speak with Janine’s boss, who tells them she was a great officer who knew how to do her job. When asked about what she was working on, he tells them it was called Espada de Santanas, a Columbian drug cartel they were working to apprehend. They had rounded up all of the members and he is certain her cover left her protected. But Gibbs points out they were able to find out she worked with them and wonders if anyone else could have.

Tony and Tim are discussing Gibbs and Jake when Tony asks Ellie how often they talk. Ellie tells them that they meet up to play a game of Racquetball, causing the boys to look confused as Gibbs walks in for an update. Tony and Tim did not find any evidence of trouble at her apartment and Tim brought her laptop since he was unable to open it. Abby is busy trying to work on the car so he called Special Agent Ned Dorneget to come back to help. He is excited to work with them again and Gibbs puts him on the job of cracking the computer. Tim gets an e-mail with files on all of Wilt’s communications on the operation she worked to take down. Gibbs puts him and Tony to work going through the e-mails.

Ducky is uncharacteristically quiet in autopsy, which leaves Jimmy perplexed as he brings up comments Ducky would usually make. Gibbs comes down to find out that the cause of death was confirmed as she bled out from the cut to her throat. They tell Gibbs that abrasions on her throat mean the killer held the knife there before he cut her. Jimmy has neck tissue samples he plans to take to Abby and as he leaves, Gibbs thanks him.

Abby is curious about Jimmy being surprised at the thank you and he points out it is usually only her who gets the thanks. He is excited Gibbs appreciates him and Abby tells him to take the tissue sample to her lab so she can work on the car.

Gibbs sees Dorneget isn’t in the room and Ellie shows him security footage of the car from 20 minutes before she crashed into the diner. She hadn’t been stabbed yet, but they still don’t know where she was going. Dorneget comes back with snacks for the team and tells them Wilt had a lot of security, showing some paranoia. Tim finds information on Alfredo Montez from the e-mails. He is a drug trafficker who set up a fake computer-consulting job, which he used to work for the cartel. Since he has so many alias’, Tony, Ellie, and Ned work to find out where he could be.

Ellie and Tony find Alfredo, who thinks they are going to kill him. Tony tells him that they aren’t the kind of feds who can be bought and arrests him. Ellie and Tony question him in interrogation, but it appears Alfredo was actually scared of the cartel since he had told them his messaging network couldn’t be hacked. He only thinks it was the feds who managed to crack his system and claims to know nothing about the individual hacker. Vance and Gibbs watch and Vance doesn’t feel he is their killer.

Abby calls Gibbs to tell him that she found a glove print on the handle in the backseat of the car, meaning it is likely the killer was in the backseat the entire time and had a knife to Janine’s throat. Gibbs heads back upstairs, where Ned is still having trouble cracking the laptop. He makes an obscure Skyrim reference, which Tim tells Gibbs about, earning a “Thank you, Elf Lord.” Then, Ned is pleased when he finds out that Janine got access from the laptop to a home computer belonging to Adem Faruk Korkmaz.

Tim and Ellie go to his house, where they see his daughter Layna before Adem arrives. When asked about the computer being accessed, he claims his computer is for business and she could not have accessed it. He tells them he doesn’t know who Wilt is and refuses to help them without a warrant.

The team tells Gibbs Korkmaz emigrated from Instabul and got citizenship in 2003. He founded a company called Korkmaz that works in importing and exporting. Tim comes to tell them he couldn’t get a warrant because another agency has their eye on Korkmaz’s involvement with Turkey. After receiving a call, Vance informs them it is the NSA and they have been asked to “back off.” Vance won’t be able to contact the NSA director until the next morning. Ellie wonders who called Vance to tell them to stop working the case and she feels she knows who it is.

Jake and Ellie have a tense confrontation when she is unhappy he won’t tell her why NSA is looking into Korkmaz. Things are different and they can’t talk about each other’s cases. It turns out they have been having problems talking about work and Ellie never revealed she had shot someone the week before. Jake can’t give her what she needs for her case and he hopes they can work things out even though they are different now because of work.

The next morning, Tony and Tim come in with big smiles, but then see Ellie is upset and looking tense. When Jake comes in to go talk to Vance, they notice the couple are not speaking. Upstairs, Jake tells Gibbs and Vance he is surrendering access to Korkmaz’s computer and already got what they needed.

Korkmaz is with Tony and Gibbs, unhappy that he had to give up his computer’s SSID card. In the bullpen, Ned and Tim work on the computer while Ellie wonders how they got access. Tim tells her not to ask and Ned finds that Korkmaz’s business appears legit. Then Ned discovers a file that can’t be opened and has the same code as what Wilt used to gain access. They see a list of screen names from a chat that can’t be accessed so Tim asks for a print out.

Ellie comes in with information and Korkmaz admits to not knowing that the bags he sold were knock offs. She is confused since that wasn’t what she found so she gives Gibbs the list of names from the chat room. Korkmaz is genuinely confused and then he sees a screen name called ‘Scout99.” When he goes quiet, Ellie realizes it belongs to his daughter. They ask if she went to the high school Wilt worked at and Korkmaz wonders how they knew this.

Gibbs talks to Layna and she informs them that someone with the screen name Hellbent427 got her to join a chat room where people were asking if she had found her calling and if she was lonely. She didn’t know why they were asking and quit the chat room when it got creepy. She gives them a list of screen names that were also asked to join the chat. Layne had asked Wilt for help in blocking the chat room and deleting the e-mail address so she couldn’t be found. Gibbs tells Tim to find the person with the screen name as Abby goes to talk to Tim and Ned.

She tells them, along with Gibbs, she got samples from the neck tissue that matched an old Vietnamese bayonet. She found six collectors of the bayonet and one is Peter Simek. He has a son named Brad and his screenname is Hellbent247.

Tony and Tim go to Bradley’s mother’s house to talk to Brad. They see his late father’s bayonet collection is missing one and when Brad doesn’t come downstairs, they go to find him. When they discover that he is not in his room, his mother hears their garage door. Tim and Tony run downstairs to find Brad driving away.

The team brings Abby the weapons they found, although Tony and Tim are sure the one missing is the murder weapon. They also brought the computer and Tim laments about the 3-D printer Brad has. Gibbs asks if they got a location by cell phone, but Tim is sure it is being blocked. Abby and Ned get to work on getting through Brad’s computer.

Downstairs, Palmer shudders at how dark the web is as he looks at Abby’s screen saver. She gives him the e-mails and information off the computer so he and Ducky can profile. He isn’t sure he is a profiler, but Abby calls him “the wind beneath [Ducky’s] wings.” Upstairs, Ellie tells Vance and Gibbs that Layna barely knew Brad and he had tried to get her into whatever he was part of. Jake comes to ask Vance and Gibbs that he hoped he did all right in getting them the information on time. After they leave, he and Ellie talk briefly before he tells her again that he wished she had told him about last week’s killing. Ellie promises to talk soon.

Gibbs talks to Ducky and Palmer about Brad. The kid was a loner and used his computer as an outlet for his rage. Another user was basically turning him over to their cause, saying the world hated him. He was an easy target for what Gibbs asks could be linked to terrorism. Jimmy also tells them Brad sent e-mails to his late father’s e-mail account, signaling feelings about a heavy loss.

Ned and Abby are working in the lab when Abby gets results from Major Mass Spec that there was gunpowder residue on Brad’s computer tower. She finds information on the last thing Brad printed and rushes to tell Gibbs and the team that Brad has a bomb somewhere. Tim sees his phone is turned on and they leave to try and find him.

In the car, Brad calls his mother but doesn’t speak as she pleads with him to come home. The team is working on his location and then realizes he is actually on a bus. Gibbs tells them to call the driver so he can pull over. We see Brad is on a bus full of passengers and the driver stops. The team stays outside while Gibbs goes inside to talk Brad down and save the passengers. He tries to get Brad to stop what he is doing.

When asked about Wilt, Brad admits his knife was used, but he never killed her. Gibbs gets Brad to follow him out of the bus to talk to his mom while Tim moves away from the bus. However, when Brad hears a cop car, he loses his focus and Gibbs tries to tell him he’s not a bad kid. But Brad doesn’t listen and runs toward the back of the bus to detonate the bomb. Gibbs is thrown back by the blast as Tony looks up in shock. To be continued.

Image courtesy of INFphoto.com

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