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Royals & Loyals Recap
◄ Back to 8.04 Royals & Loyals
NCIS: Royals and LoyalsAirdate: October 12, 2010
Recap Author: callerbear
A realtor has hired an exterminator to handle a large mosquito infestation at a foreclosed house. They move to a large hot-tub in the back yard. The tub is filled with very green water -- there's so much algae that you can't see into the water. As the exterminator begins to pump out the water, they are horrified when the body of a dead naval officer floats to the surface.
Roll the opening credits.
In the squadroom, Tony is pecking away at Ziva's keyboard, apparently trying to access her password. Ziva catches him in the act, and she's not pleased. She realizes Tony was trying to access her email -- he's curious about her new acquaintance from Miami.
At the site, Gibbs orders McGee to climb into the hot tub to pull out. Petty Officer Edward Bick has been in the water too long to find a time of death, but he was apparently shot in the chest. As Ducky and Palmer prepare to move the body, they realize that the officer's abdomen has been slit open. Someone has cut open the body to find something in his stomach. Phoof!
Bick's service record is immaculate. Tony and Ziva are sent to interview the widow. Just as they begin speaking, Petty Officer Jason Crosby joins them -- he's a good friend of the dead man. Crosby tells them that Bick had been selected for a special duty assignment; even though the duty roster showed him signed into the ship every day, he had been working elsewhere. The wife reports that someone had been watching the house, and she believes that his special assignment had led to his death.
In Autopsy, Ducky realizes that the man had been drowned somewhere else, and his body moved and dumped into the hot tub. Ducky believes that the man may have been having an allergic reaction based on an abnormal spot in his lungs. There's also a very unusual depression on his temple -- looks like a bolt or something. Ducky also spots something wedged between his teeth -- it's a fragment of a $100 bill!
In Forensics, Abby has trapped herself under a desk while trying to emulate a circus contortionist. She's been there long enough to get a cramp in her leg; Gibbs rescues her and helps straighten her leg. She's identified the type of gun involved: It's a rare English revolver. The water in the dead man's lung was a combination of salt and fresh water, with traces of oils and a non-American cleaning agent. She continues her research.
In the squadroom, Gibbs asks the team to show their results: They have nothing. Bick was working on a classified Navy project that involved the CIA. They're stonewalled until the CIA will read them into the secret project.
Abby has matched the markings on the man's temple to a particular valve handle made for British ships, and there's just one British ship (the Sparrowhawk) docked at Norfolk. Looks like the killing technically took place on British soil, making the investigation even more complex. Phoof!
In Director Vance's office, Vance introduces Gibbs to British Marine Major Peter Malloy. Malloy is the Sparrowhawk's liasion officer between the British and US Navy. Malloy insists that the Sparrowhawk will be leaving dock in two hours. Gibbs vehemently disagrees, and Vance has to call SecNav to prevent their argument from escalating.
In the squadroom, Gibbs reluctantly introduces Malloy to the team -- he and Ziva appear to hit it off well; not so much with the men. Vance appears; SecNav has granted clearance for NCIS to board the Sparrowhawk. Vance appoints Ziva to serve as "Switzerland between England and the US."
Abby has discovered that the money was marked by the CIA in such a way that the money was very traceable, both by touch and radio waves. The tracking powder left inside Bick's stomach indicates that he swallowed at least one full bill before someone cut it out of his stomach. The rest of the money can be traced by a radio frequency, if they only knew what frequency to use. But the tiny sample they have is too small to figure that out.
Gibbs meets with Loretta Tennison, the CIA's operations officer in Norfolk. She stonewalls him, denying that she knew Bick. She disavows knowledge of any operations, because the CIA is forbidden from operating on US soil. When Gibbs shows her the fragment of tracable money, she acknowledges that there had been an operation to send money (via the British) to warlords in Afghanistan. But, she says, the operation was cancelled before the money ever reached the ship. It couldn't have been related to the killing, she says.
In NATO headquarters, Malloy is trying to get permission for the Sparrowhawk to leave port. Gibbs orders DiNozzo and Ziva to keep him from leaving. Malloy informs them that the British Naval office has approved their departure, but Ziva gets him to agree that they can take a quick look on the ship.
On board, Ziva and Tony have just found the specific valve that made the impression on Bick's temple, and there's enough oily water on the floor to have drowned Bick. Malloy arrives -- The ship's departure time has been moved forward because of weather concerns. He tells them they have to leave. As they move through the corridors, warning sirens sound. There's a problem in the engine room, and they've have to run tests. Gibbs appears, and Malloy leaves. When Tony remarks on their "lucky break", Gibbs shows them a large crescent wrench and smiles. "There's no such thing as luck." Phoof!
Back aboard the ship, the captain tells Gibbs that a bracket had broken loose and was replaced. He tells Gibbs to take his people off the ship. Meanwhile, Ziva and Tony use a black light in the compartment where they believe that Bick was killed. The tracking powder from the money is all over the compartment, especially on a particular packing case.
On short, Gibbs meets again with CIA officer Tennison and shows her evidence that the money was aboard the ship. Bick swallowed one of the bills, he says, because Bick wanted to prove that it was aboard the ship. She denies it, and says that the ship has been used for this type of transfer in the past. Gibbs challenges the point, because the ship's logs show that it had never been to the Mid East. Tennison finally admits she had worked with Bick. She says there were only three people that knew the money was aboard the ship: Bick (who was responsible for guarding it), herself (the person that just lost 3 million dollars of CIA money), and the Brit responsible for coordinating the money drop -- Major Malloy.
McGee has found video footage of Malloy's car leaving the Norfolk shipyard minutes after Bick was murdered. His cell phone records indicate that he placed a phone call less than a quarter-mile from where the body was found. Gibbs sends Tony and Ziva by helicopter to pull Malloy off the ship, since it's still in US waters.
In Interrogation, Malloy cracks wise with Gibbs and denies knowing anything about the money. Malloy owns a gun much like the one that killed Bick, but claims that the gun is in his London apartment. Gibbs points out that his home is in foreclosure. Even so, he denies killing anyone and denies stealing the money. Gibbs takes his teabag and cup for evidence samples.
Using the tea cup, Abby has retrieved one of Malloy's fingerprints. His real name is Elston Harmon, and he's not a naval officer at all -- he's a member of the MI-6, the British Secret Service. He's attached to the Sparrowhawk whenever it's docked in an American port.
In the squadroom, Gibbs learns that Malloy left NCIS with a representative of the British consulate. They track his cell phone to a room in the Drake Hotel downtown. The team heads out to the hotel -- the room is empty, but there are traces of the tracking powder. The money had been there, but now both Malloy and the money are gone. Phoof!
The team has alerted everyone they can to be on the lookout for Malloy. Vance comes down -- the CIA has been complaining about Gibbs intruding into their problem with the missing money. They don't want the case solved, they want it to go away because the payments were intended for warlords on the other side of the conflict. Vance orders Gibbs to slow down -- he doesn't want an international incident. Gibbs is visibly angry and leaves, telling his team to find Malloy.
Gibbs enters his home, only to find Malloy sitting in his living room and drinking Gibb's beer (which he compares to 'horse excrement'). Gibbs sets his watch on the table, and sets his gun next to it. "You have ten seconds," he says, "before I accidentally shoot you for trespassing." Malloy asks Gibbs for help -- he's being framed, probably by the CIA. The money was on the ship. He gives Gibbs a package of ten thousand dollars of the trackable money. It should be enough to identify the radio frequency so that they can find the rest of the money and the person that's framing Malloy for the crime.
Back in the squadroom, Gibbs enters with Malloy in tow. Gibbs orders Ziva to watch him ("Like Syria, not Switzerland"); Tony and Malloy start discussing British comedic movies and find they have similar tastes.
In Forensics, Abby introduces Gibbs to her "new main squeeze, Ken the SEM (a scanning electron microscope)" that can magnify items by a factor of 500,000. She shows Gibbs a particular particle of pollen found in Bick's lung. It comes from a plant found only in one place in the world -- Diego Garcia. It's a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean that happens to be home to a large US Naval base. Since Bick had never been to Diego Garcia, the pollen must have come from some that he was in close contact with -- someone like his killer.
Zooming in on the maps of the Diego Garcia base, the team finds that it also houses a CIA operation -- and that the most recent station chief was none other than our friend Loretta Tennison. Vance happens to be there as they learn this. He'll be happy to go above her head.
In MTAC, the team watches as the CIA activates their cash tracking software. The missing money has been spent with vendors and stores all over the city. Someone has switched a million dollars of marked CIA money with (literally) clean money from the payroll of the Sparrowhawk, so that the British sailors were spending the dirty money. Malloy may have been involved, but Tennison almost certainly was. Bick must have figured out the plan, so Tennison killed him. But there's more money to be traced!
McGee tracks Tennison's phone -- she's just arranged for helicoptor transport to the USS Tripoli. Her cell phone records show several calls to the disbursing officer of the Tripoli, who must be her accomplice for the next money switch. They realize they can beat her out to the ship.
That night, a helicopter lands on the deck of the USS Tripoli. Tennison disembarks, carrying an aluminum briefcase. She heads into the disbursing officer looking for her contact, but the man that turns around is Malloy. She threatens Malloy with an English pistol just like the one that was used to kill Bick. She tells Malloy that she killed Bick because he had tried to stop her. Gibbs enters and arrests her for Bick's murder.
As she's being taken away, Tennison tries to justify her actions: The money was going to drug smugglers and opium growers. She thinks she was saving lives by keeping the money. Gibbs has just one comment: "You didn't save Bick's."
Later, in the squadroom, Ziva is chuckling as she writes an email to her new friend in Miami. Tony hopes to meet him someday. Ziva has one question: IF Tony were to meet her friend, she is curious what he would say. His immediate reaction is "Be careful." He thinks a moment more and adds, "Handle with care. Contents priceless." She smiles and leaves.
Tony makes an excuse to stay behind, and tries once again to guess Ziva's password. Her new security software catches him, setting off sirens and making a video recording of the perpetrator. Tony scrambles to shut things down. Phoof!
Roll the closing credits.
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