Sign in or 
Share this
Psych Out Recap
◄ Return to 9.16 Psych Out
Two thieves carefully break into a house and begin quietly searching for valuables. As they reach the staircase, a body falls from the upper floor. The body snaps upright and dangles, hanging from a noose around its neck. One of the thieves panics and fires twice at the body. Terrified, they run from the house.
Roll the opening credits.
Tony is excited -- it's "LES Day" (payday). He's surprised when he opens his Leave and Earnings Statement -- the amount is wrong. He realizes that he's looking at McGee's LES and that McGee's weekly paycheck is $253 higher than Tony's. "It's all about withholding," McGee tells him. Gibbs enters -- they have a dead navy reservist. Time to go.
At the reservist's large home, the team begins to process the scene. The two thieves are being arrested on breaking and entering charges, even though they didn't steal anything. They don't believe anyone else was in the house. The victim is Dr. Robert Banks, a reservist with a high-level security clearance. Ducky believes that the Banks (or his killer) carefully measured the height of the drop and the quality of the knot to ensure that Banks' neck was cleanly snapped by the hanging. Ducky's examination will have to show whether he died from the rope or the shooting.
A cop knocks on the door -- the victim's doctor has arrived. It's Rachel Cranston, Kate Todd's sister. Meanwhile, Ziva has just found the victim's cell phone: He had received four calls last night from Dr. Cranston. Rachel can't believe that Banks would have killed himself. "Whatever it looks like, Gibbs, you look deeper. Robert was one of the strongest people I knew. He wouldn't do this, couldn't! I know someone killed him." Phoof!
On the patio behind the house, Gibbs interviews Dr. Cranston. Banks was a brilliant psychologist, she says, and they've known each other since school. They have been close colleagues, so when Banks' wife filed for divorce a few months ago, Banks turned to her for help through his difficult times. He was consulting for a special project for the Pentagon. It was an MISO (Military Information Support Operations) project. "I'm old school, Doc. PsyOps will do." When Gibbs tells her that credit card records show he was writing prescriptions for himself, she doesn't think it's true. "That's the kind of background deception that PsyOps excels at." Dr. Banks invented that type of operation, she says.
Banks originally asked Dr. Cranston to help his daughter get through the divorce, but Banks was apparently having as much trouble as his daughter did. He was growing increasingly anxious, but whenever Cranston would mention Banks' daughter, his panic would subside. "He lived for his little girl. She was his hope, his whole reason for living. People who have any hope at all, Gibbs, they don't take their own life!"
In the NCIS conference room, Banks' wife and teenage daughter are being interviewed by Gibbs and Cranston. The wife, Beth Banks, says that Banks had grown unpredictable, moody, and had begun taking it out on both of them. The daughter, Amber, is bitter. "It's all because they broke up. He still loved her." She scornfully looks at her mother. "You made this happen!" Gibbs has found two life insurance policies: one standard policy from the university, and a second four-million dollar policy on which both wife and daughter were beneficiaries. Beth wasn't aware that the second policy was in existence.
In the squadroom, an older woman walks into the area looking for someone. "Ah, finally," Tony says, "You work for Fred Seymour in Accounting, right?"
"You need an accountant?" she asks.
"You bet I do! I've got a salary dispute!"
"Oooh! Are you feeling over-valued or under-valued?"
"That's an interesting question. It's not me, actually, it's McGee."
"Who's McGee?"
"My co-worker! The tall, pasty guy, wanders around sort of [out of it]. You know, he spends way too much time indoors, needs light."
"Shouldn't I be talking to him?"
"Technically," he agrees, "That's a good point."
She moves around Tony's desk. "There's probably some underlying feelings of inadequacy between the two of you, right?"
"No. What do you mean, inadequacy?"
She pulls him closer. "Did your father ever tell you he loved you?"
Tony's eyes narrow, and he finally catches on. "You're not from Accounting, are you?" She shakes her head. "Why did you pretend to be?" he asks. "I didn't," she says, patting his hand. "You did. You just saw what you wanted to see!" Tony leans back a little. "I'm not sure I want to see you anymore." "Oh. Are we breaking up already?" she scolds. "Who are you?" he asks.
"I'm Dr. Samantha Ryan, DoD PsyOps Division. I've been told to come and see a Special Agent Gibbs."
"You found him." Gibbs enters. "You a brain-gamer, Ryan?" "That's 'head brain-gamer' to you," she tells him. "I oversee all Military Information Support Operations. I understand you're investigating the death of Dr. Robert Banks."
Vance calls down from the top of the stairs -- he'd like a word with Gibbs in his office. Vance and Ryan recognize each other and apparently are on a first-name basis. "Feel free to ask Leon anything you want. We go way back," she tells Gibbs. Gibbs asks Tony to escort Dr. Ryan to the conference room, where Dr. Cranston is waiting. "Cranston?" Ryan notes with interest.
In his office, Vance tells Gibbs that he's just received a call from SecNav. HIS boss, the Secretary of Defense, wants to know why NCIS is investigating an MISO employee. "Dead guy's Navy, Leon, that makes it ours." Gibbs changes the subject and asks Vance how he knows Ryan. "She's an old colleague. Let's just say we spent some time together at the War College." Gibbs chuckles and turns to leave. "Be careful," Vance warns, "She's inquisitive." "Well, so am I", Gibbs tells him from the doorway. "Gibbs," Vance stops him. "Not like her."
Alone in the conference room, Doctors Ryan and Cranston study each other before Gibbs arrives. Ryan speaks first.
"Do you exercise?"
"I walk. Why?"
"Because you look skinny. Skinnier than the last time I saw you."
"Gave up dairy."
"I'm lactose intolerant."
"You always were into the latest fads..."
"It's not really a fad, it's a diagnosis."
Gibbs enters, sees the two women intently looking at one another. "So, anyone want coffee?" he asks. They both reply in unison. "No milk."
He starts with easy questions. "You two went to school together, right?"
Ryan answers first. "Hmm, yes. Does that turn you on, Agent Gibbs? A couple of co-eds?"
He hands her a cup of coffee, and Ryan continues. "Afterwards, she went clinical and I went military. Very different points of view and, um, full disclosure: We both slept with Banks. She was interested in his mind, and I..."
Cranston interrupts. "Was doing it. You're doing it!"
"Doing what?"
"All the games, the nonsense...."
Ryan sets her cup down, starts to rise. "And I'm leaving." "No, you're not." Gibbs says. Cranston steps in front of Ryan. "Sam, we think Banks was the victim of a PsyOps scheme."
Ryan turns to look at Gibbs. "We?" Cranston continues. "He was my patient." "That's ridiculous," Ryan tells her. "Is it?" Rachel asks.
Ryan steps past her towards the door. "Agent Gibbs. I will answer any question you have, but not here and obviously not with her." "Why not?" he asks. She smirks at him. "National security."
He nods, and she continues. "Next meeting, my office, my rules."
"My investigation," Gibbs says.
"My friend", adds Rachel.
"Our friend, Rachel!" Ryan turns back to Gibbs. "Banks was working with an MISO field op named Mitchell on an assignment. You probably should talk to him."
She leaves the conference room as Gibbs phone rings. He tells Ducky he's on his way, but Rachel stops him for a moment. "Hey, Gibbs. Don't trust these people. Especially her."
In the MISO offices, field operative Brian Mitchell can't believe that Banks is dead. "No, I would have been informed! DoD, Pentagon, there's a chain of communication that would have been engaged." Mitchell finally gives in when Tony shows him a photo of Banks with the noose around his neck. Mitchell is uncomfortable working in PsyOps and is about to be reassigned to other duties at his own request. After being shown a court order, Mitchell hands them a file on former Marine 2nd Lt. Kyle Baxter, discharged six months earlier because of a negative emotional stability evaluation. The evaluation was written by Dr. Banks.
In Autopsy, Ducky tells Gibbs that he believes the bullet hit Banks immediately after his neck was snapped, so the death was by suicide. But there were other findings: his kidney and liver functions were deteriorating rapidly. Banks had, perhaps, six months to live. Phoof!
In Forensics, Abby has found that someone has switched two-thirds of Banks' daily blood pressure pills with dangerous psychotropic drugs proven to cause depression, increase mental instability and wreak havoc on his liver and kidneys. "He's being played, Abs. The question is by who?"
In the Pentagon, Gibbs interviews Dr. Samantha Ryan in her office. She introduces her assistant, Ross Kilmer, who offers Gibbs a USB drive with the MISO personnel records for the operation Banks with which Banks was working. Gibbs steps close to Ryan. "You know what I really like, Doc? Paper. I, really, love paper." He hands the drive back to her.
In the squadroom, McGee is waving a wand over two devices that Tony and Ziva found in Bank's couch and mattress. They're "electromagnetic field emitters" that can interfere with sleep cycles, leading to headaches and nightmares. Gibbs walks in with his cup of coffee and a stack of personnel files from MISO. In Banks office safe, Ziva found an operations protocol document for a top-secret mission -- they believe that's for the project to which Banks was assigned. Gibbs reviews the cover, turns to the table of contents.
Suddenly, Gibbs rips out the first page of the table of contents and stuffs it into his pocket. He grabs his coat and rushes to leave. "McGee, track the gizmos you found back to PsyOps." Gibbs goes to the plasma and shuts off the power. He steps to McGee's desk, yanks the power cord out of his monitor and turns to leave. "Email issues again?" Tony asks. "Trust issues!" he calls over his shoulder. From now on, I want paper. From the source!"
Cut to a large warehouse containing many racks of boxes of files, stacked on shelves that must reach ten feet tall. "There have got to be a million files in here," Ziva wonders. Without an electronic index, McGee says he doesn't even know where to start. Ziva helpfully suggests "alphabetically".
Causally dressed, Gibbs walks into a formal reception for the Annual US Military Psychiatric Conference. He finds Dr. Ryan conversing with an unnamed Marine general. He shows his ID to the general then tells Ryan that he needs to talk with her. "Murders are generally time sensitive," he tells her. She realizes she knows just the place where they can talk, and leads Gibbs into the woman's restroom.
She steps to the mirror and begins touching up her makeup. "Feel safe, Gibbs?" "Oh, guess not everyone in here has a security clearance," he says as a woman walks in, sees him and immediately walks back out.
"You're enjoying this," she says, "I'll play along. What d'ya got?"
He pulls the page from his pocket and begins to read. "Removal of threats using drugs and alternative methods. That's a hell of a page-turner Doc, real how-to."
She smiles defiantly at his reflection in the mirror while he continues to read.
"Driving a sane person to suicide by using pills and sleep deprivation. Sound familiar to you?"
She turns back to him, still showing her defiance. "Be very careful with what you're suggesting."
"It's a page out of your own playbook, Doc." He steps closer to her. "So I'm going to ask you again. What do you know about the death of Robert Banks?"
The smile is gone. Seriously, she looks at him and says, "I'm going to tell you again." She sadly shakes her head. "Nothing."
She turns back to the mirror. "Giving you a chance to come clean, Dr. Ryan. Help solve the murder of a close friend."
The sassy smile is back. "I already told you the truth."
He moves closer, whispers into her ear. "Whose truth?" Gibbs exits the restroom, leaving a contemplative Dr. Ryan behind.
Dr. Rachel Cranston steps out at the top of Gibbs' basement stairs. There's no boat in the basement; he's shaping the arm of a nearly-finished rocking chair. Without turning from his work, he tells her that her sister used to look at him that way -- like a cat that ate a canary. Rachel joins him. "I didn't exactly tell you everything, Gibbs." "There's a lot of that going around." During a session with Banks, he mentioned a sensitive national security issue. Gibbs pours drinks for each of them. Rachel tells Gibbs what little she knows of the secret Operation Alborz, named for the largest mountain range in Iran. She doesn't know any details, but has the sense that Banks wasn't supposed to talk of it to anyone, ever.
Just then, his cell phone rings. It's McGee. All of the personnel files were dead ends, leaving them with only Kyle Baxter as a lead. As Gibbs paces while talking, his cell phone reception suddenly fails because of interference in the spectrum. He pulls an old transistor radio off the shelf and tunes it to a station. When Rachel starts to speak, he signals that she should stay quiet. Holding the radio antenna out in front of him, he tracks the source of the interference to the center of his workbench. Underneath a bottle of glue, he finds a listening device! He holds it close to his mouth. "G'night, Ryan. Sleep tight!", then smashes the device with his wood scraper. Phoof!
In the file warehouse, DiNozzo staples a page from a personel folder to the end of a box in a crude imitation of the plasma screen. Eighteen months earlier, he was hand-picked by Banks to join the MISO's secret operations unit. Several months later, he was thrown out for anti-social behavior, violent tendencies, eventually was discharged from the Marines, and fell of the grid a few months after that. McGee urges him to let them go back to using their computers, but Gibbs declines. He shows them the bug. "Find out where it came from, the old-fashioned way."
McGee's cell phone chirps. He left it on only to be notified if Baxter's cell phone made a call. The phone is in use, looks like it's at a sidewalk cafe less than five minutes away. Tony and Ziva are sent to find the phone.
At the cafe, Ryan's smarmy assistant Ross Kilmer is enjoying a cigar while working on a Blackberry phone. Ziva and Tony walk up to his table. "NCIS? Four minutes! Nice! You guys are good." He tells them that Baxter had left his phone with Kilmer, and wanted to see if NCIS was tracking him. He hands the phone over. "You can have it; he's got others." He has no idea where Baxter is at the moment. Just before he leaves, he openly sets an open matchbook down onto the table with a smile. The matchbook is from a resort in Cancun. There's a name written on the inside cover: James Drenden.
The next morning, Dr. Ryan has just dropped her small son off at school for the day when she sees Gibbs leaning against his car. She is shocked and furious to see him there.
"How did you know where my son went to school?" Gibbs is motionless, expressionless.
"His records are all classified!" Our 'functional mute' nods his head in acknowledgement.
"Did you follow me? You following me now? Am I under surveillance, Gibbs?" He remains stock still.
"You hacked my records! This is *my* *personal* *life*!"
He finally speaks. "PsyOps 101. You approach people at their most vulnerable."
She looks at him with scorn, then moves back towards her car. "You even the playing field!" Gibbs calls. Without turning around, she calls back. "You don't want to play with me, Gibbs! Trust me."
In Director Vance's office, Dr. Ryan is still furious. She carefully keeps her personal life confidential for a reason. Through gritted teeth, she hisses at Vance. "And my son is off limits!" Gibbs says that his home is off limits as well, and shows her the bug.
"You don't like your own medicine, Doc?"
"I am not the enemy!"
"You bugged my home!"
Vance intervenes. "Tell us about Operation Alborz." She refuses, saying it's a matter of national security. Vance presses the button underneath the conference table, and his office is locked into "SCIF" mode (Secure Compartmented Information Facility"). "Alborz," Gibbs prompts.
She finally begins to tell them about the operation. After we invaded Iraq in 2003, Iran started pouring billions of dollars into nuclear research. The Alborz mission was to use PsyOps techniques to 'destabilize' Iranian nuclear scientists. "And the Iranians got wind of it?" Vance asks. "Possibly", she tells them, and Vance speculates that the Iranians may have done the same thing to Dr. Banks in retribution. Ryan tells them that she'll do whatever she can to help them find Banks' killer. "I want this over as much as you do."
In Abby's lab, Abby has cracked the (very complex) encryption on Banks' laptop. She was able to 'follow the tracks' of someone that had been there before. That unknown party was subtly altering Banks' perception of the world: Draining his financial accounts, sending threatening emails, actually modifying sports scores and inserting fake news articles into various web sites. The attacks appear to have been coming from a resort in Cancun. She has found security video of the occupant. Facial recognition software identifies the suspect as Kyle Baxter!
McGee arrives and gains Gibbs' permission to use one of Abby's computers. Using the name from the matchbook cover, he and DiNozzo have found that Baxter traveled to Cancun using the name James Drenden. According to the IRS, "Drenden" is currently employed as a bartender in Georgetown.
In Interrogation, Baxter is calm and confident. He would have come in days earlier if only he had known they were looking for him. Yes, he admits he was in Mexico, and it's no surprise to him that the drugs given to Banks were manufactured not far from Cancun. Gibbs shows him the documents they have, and Baxter chuckles. "Wow. They're good. You're looking at a PsyOps package, sir, you can't trust that! Look, Banks discharged me for violent tendencies, next thing you know I'm the fall guy. You fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Why wouldn't they frame me? It's perfect!" He says he never left his phone or the matchbook with anyone. He borrows Gibbs' notebook, and writes down a phone number. "Call that number, ask for Simon. He'll straighten it out."
In MTAC, Vance and Gibbs use the big screen to interview an American on the shores of some tropical paradise (presumably Cancun). He tells them that Baxter had been working undercover as a confidential informant for the DEA for the past twelve months, and that he was very good at it. "Best CI we ever had!" They've been watching him closely for every moment of the last year. "If you think he's involved with this, you're wrong. Somebody real good's been playing you folks." Vance turns to Gibbs. "So the person Dr. Ryan has been pushing, Gibbs, isn't our killer." Phoof!
Dr. Ryan visits Gibbs at his home. As an opening gift, perhaps by way of apology, she hands him a USB drive that contains recordings of Cranston's sessions with Banks. "She's a quack. No she's not, she's good, and it made listening all the harder. He was in real trouble."
"That your apology about Baxter?"
"I have a job to do. NCIS was looking into a sensitive area at a critical time. We have protocols in place to protect our mission. Part of our rulebook."
"Yeah, well, I got some rules of my own, too. Rule .umber 42. Don't ever accept an apology from someone that just sucker-punched you."
"I didn't apologize."
Ryan brings up the subject of children. "The other day I was picking up my son, Parker, from soccer practice, and he was walking toward the car, and not once did he look over his shoulder. And that meant everything to me." Tears come to her eyes. "In my job, I take precautions, and I don't know how you found him, but I believe everybody deserves one secret, and I'm asking, you, if I can have this one."
"OK." Gibbs says.
She smiles. "Thank you! I owe you. Assuming you'll let me know when you want to collect." She moves past him towards the door.
"I want to collect now." He turns to step behind her. "Someone with your knowledge killed Banks. I want to know who."
She turns her head to look back at him. "Whoever it is, has lost sight of who we are and what we do."
"You got a name?" She considers for a moment, then leans forward to whisper into his ear. "Good luck!" She gathers her coat and leaves. But her cell phone remains behind on the arm of Gibbs couch.
The next morning, Gibbs walks into the squadroom. McGee has hit electronic dead-ends on Banks' records. Gibbs hands him Ryan's cell phone and he gets to work. There's just one phone number that correlates between calls to Ryan and Banks over the past two weeks: It's Brian Mitchell, Banks' assistant. There's a second phone number on Mitchell's account to which he has sent many text messages.
Gibbs gets his coat. "Ziva, with me. DiNozzo. Dial both numbers three times. Hang up after one ring." "Boss?" "Do it." As he leaves, Gibbs calls over his shoulder. "And keep sending me locations on Mitchell's cell." Vance has been listening from the background, and steps up. "Fail-safe call. It's an old spycraft trick. Means something's gone wrong. Parties supposed to meet at a predetermined location." DiNozzo thinkgs it may be a long shot. "Kind of a rookie move, isn't it?" Vance agrees. "Yeah. That's why it just might work."
At a park, Amber Banks (the daughter) meets with Mitchell. Gibbs and Ziva listen in electronically.
"Why did you call me, Brian?"
"I came as soon as I could."
"We agreed it wouldn't be safe." She sighs. "This will never work. You'll never have what you want if you don't listen."
"You know what I want!" He steps forward and attempts to embrace her but she pushes him back.
"You don't deserve it. You messed up, big time."
"I made your father look unstable! I gave him the drugs, I did what you said!"
"I said to make it look like he killed himself! If they figure out I'm involved, I'll get nothing! I want that money."
"I just want you to be happy. I want -us- to be happy."
"This isn't about us anymore. You killed my father, Brian. I will not go down with you for this."
"Oh, I'm afraid you are," Gibbs tells her as he steps out from behind the car. As the pair is handcuffed, Amber tries to lay all the blame on Mitchell. Ziva leads her away. "Nice girl," Gibbs tells Mitchell. "Thirty years, take her home to meet the folks!"
In the squadroom, Gibbs escorts Rachel Cranston towards the elevator. "Amber used me, just like she used him. I never saw it coming. I thought she was another broken teenager, caught up in an ugly divorce." Gibbs tries to explain. "Doc, you look for the good in people. There? There's not much to find." She smiles, and they get on the elevator together just as NCIS Agent Cashier Fred Seymour from Accounting steps out.
Fred joins the team at Tony's desk. "Agent DiNozzo!"
Tony is delighted that Fred would arrive with McGee standing there. He warmly shakes his hand.
"Actually, good news. We traced the problem back to a clerical error," Fred turns to McGee with a sad smile, "Which results in overpayments to you, Agent McGee."
Tony chuckles, but Fred turns to him and continues on. "Now the bad news. Thanks to your requested review of your file, we discovered that we've been short on your FICA withholding for the previous five years. So you owe us two-thousand, nine hundred and ninety seven dollars and thirty-three cents. Payable immediately." Fred smiles and hands the folder to Tony. "Enjoy your night!" He leaves Tony gaping in disbelief.
That night, Gibbs is sleeping on his couch under the window when his cell phone rings. He answers.
"Yeah, Gibbs."
It's Dr. Samantha Ryan, sitting alone at her home. "Hi. What are you doing?"
"Well, I'm sleeping. It's four o'clock in the morning. What are you doing?"
"Trying out my new phone. My other one disappeared."
"Yeah? That what happened, huh?"
"Sorry. I don't get much sleep. Had a lot on my mind."
"Whose head you messing with tonight, Doc?"
"Probably my own. I shouldn't have called."
Gibbs shakes his head, then gently asks. "How can I help?"
She's a little nervous, somewhat hesitant. "I just wanted to thank you for figuring out what happened to Robert."
"Doing my job. I think you already knew, though."
"You make people feel safe, Gibbs. It's a gift."
He sits back in surprise. "Well, people need answers."
"I need breakfast," she says.
Now Gibbs is really surprised. "OK. When?"
"How about now?"
"Well, I know a little diner that's open 24 hours."
She smiles shyly. "Perfect."
Gibbs has a question, though. "Are you asking me on a date, Ryan?"
"It's the middle of the night, Agent Gibbs. You tell me."
Phoof!
Roll the closing credits.
◄ Return to 9.16 Psych Out
callerbear |
Latest page update: made by callerbear
, Apr 19 2012, 10:55 PM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Add link to recap author
- callerbear
1 word added view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
recap
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
