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Short Fuse Recap
A man is getting dressed, apparently after an intimate encounter. The couple starts to plan their next rendezvous when they hear noises from downstairs. While still wearing her nightclothes, the woman reaches into a bedside drawer (nice tattoo on her arm!) and pulls out a revolver. It's clear that she's been trained in how to use it. From the top of the staircase, she sees a man moving down below. "Hold up!" she calls. He raises a weapon and without hesitation she fires three shots. The intruder drops.
Roll the opening credits.
Tony's face appears in a small mirror, with someone dabbing his forehead with a cloth. Someone else is cleaning hairs off his jacket with a roller. A photographer's light stand is aimed squarely at his desk while a man directs the activity. Flash, flash! The photographer starts from a distance and moves progressively closer. Flash, flash, flash!
Across the office, Ziva tells McGee that Tony has been selected to be on the cover of the new NCIS recruiting brochure. Tony crows with pride as the photographer continues her work. Gibbs walks through ducking all the equipment. "Gear up! Marine shot and killed an intruder in Arlington." The man in charge of the photography session introduces himself as Ron Sands of the Public Affairs office. "Special Agent DiNozzo can't leave," Sands says, "We're not through with him." Gibbs just stops and stares. As the tension builds, Tony realizes he has only one choice. "I'll drive, boss!"
At a large home in Arlington, the back door has been pried open -- it looks like a robbery gone bad. The intruder had a gun, but the serial numbers look like they have been filed off. Ziva interviews the shooter, the woman from the opening scenes (who is now dressed much more appropriately). The Marine, Sergeant Heather Dempsey, is a bomb tech trained in Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) and has recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan. Just then, Dempsey's phone rings: They've received a bomb threat from an anti-war group. The threatened bomb is aboard the Navy's ceremonial destroyer, the USS Barry, anchored at the Navy Yard not far from the NCIS headquarters,
After Dempsey leaves to handle the threat, DiNozzo notes that Dempsey apparently lied about being alone at the time of the shooting; there is circumstantial evidence that a man had been in the house. McGee is having problems getting the fingerprint scanner to work when Ducky realizes that the dead man's fingerprints have been removed.
In Forensics, Abby is rather distracted and trying to read the filed-off serial numbers from the gun. Tony interrupts her work to have her listen to a particular sound in the background of the emergency call in which Dempsey reported the shooting. Dempsey is unusually calm during the call. When Abby enhances the snippet of background noise, it becomes recognizable as a man's voice apparently making a separate phone call. Tony smirks. "Someone else was there. I knew she was lying." Phoof!
In the squadroom, the team reviews Sergeant Dempsey's background. No alarming factors in the background, and no indication of a boyfriend. Since the call was made at 2:25 AM, a very quiet time, McGee offers to investigate every phone call being made from the cell phone towers in the area during that time. Ron Sands walks in -- he has a short deadline, but doesn't believe that they've got the right shot for the brochure cover just yet. The team needs to talk with Sergeant Dempsey -- it looks like she's still over at the USS Barry. Sands asks to come along ("Sounds like a pretty good photo op!"), and Tony agrees against the advice of Ziva and McGee.
In Autopsy, Ducky tells Palmer about a technique for removing fingerprints that invokes poking holes in your fingers, then soaking them in pineapple juice. Gibbs checks in. Ducky estimates the man's age, and reports that the man had a liver transplant ten to fifteen years before. As Ducky launches into another lecture, Gibbs smiles and leaves.
On the USS Barry, NCIS Special Agent Krone leads Ziva and Tony through the ship, trailed by Sands and his photographer. They met Sgt Dempsey, who is observing an attempt to remove the bomb with a robot. In a spare moment, DiNozzo tells her that they know a man was at the house during the previous evening, but Dempsey disregards him. When the robot cannot unhook the backpack containing the bomb, Dempsey puts on her bomb disposal suit and goes in after it. She carefully opens the backpack in an attempt to defuse it, but spots a timer mechanism that has nearly counted down to zero. As she flees the area, the bomb explodes and knocks her to the ground. She is shaken and has a bloody nose, but not seriously hurt.
In the squadroom, McGee reports his progress to Gibbs. He's eliminated every cell phone call during the emergency call but one. And that one call was made from a secure cell phone registered to the FBI. Gibbs sighs. Phoof!
At home, Gibbs is ironing his laundry when FBI Agent Tobias Fornell walks in. Fornell (now cleanly shaven!) has brought dinner for the two of them, but it's lamb curry from an Indian restaurant instead of the planned cheeseburgers. Gibbs is surprised. "We both agreed that we hate that place!" "We did. But I got a two-for-one coupon in the mail." Gibbs takes a single bite, winces, and carries the plate to the garbage can. He prods Fornell to tell him who owned the mysterious cell phone, but Fornell doesn't believe the cell phone owner would possibly be involved in an affair. "The guy's high up in the Bureau," Fornell says, "Way above our pay grade." Gibbs returns with a box of cereal and a bowl. Reluctantly, Fornell says that the cell phone belongs to Gary Tolin, who is the FBI's Executive Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigation's Division. Fornell takes a bite of the curry, screws up his face and (without swallowing) asks for another cereal bowl.
In Forensics, Abby is still frustrated by the revolver carried by the home intruder. Palmer asks for her assistance in searching the liver transplant databases to help identify the dead man, and Abby promises to help. She sends Palmer away. "Shoo! Back to the Duck Pond."
In Interrogation, Gary Tolin and Fornell enter the observation room just as Gibbs is pressing Sgt Dempsey about her statement that she was alone during the shooting, When Gibbs is able to specifically identify the man that was there, Dempsey finally relents. She had seen him speaking at an event, met him at the cocktail hour afterwards and thought he was cute. She brought him back to her place. After she shot the intruder, Tolin panicked, told her that he was married, and Dempsey agreed to cover for him. Dempsey takes Fornell out to the hallway for a quiet word. He doesn't like being embarrassed by NCIS. He agrees with Dempsey's story, tells Fornell that he'll cooperate (but Fornell is to be the sole communication path on the case), and warns Fornell to keep this affair quiet.
Back in Forensics, Abby is excited about the transplant search. Starting with a group of over 18,000 people with liver transplants during the known range, she's managed to winnow down the possibilities to just a single man: Glover Reese, formerly of Baltimore, MD. The dead man's photograph matches an old booking photo of Reese. Since serving time for attempted murder, Reese disappeared years ago but his fingerprints have been found at the scene of two unsolved murders. It looks like Glover Reese wasn't a burglar, he was a hit-man. Phoof!
Fornell and Gibbs visit Tolin's home. They're looking for Tolin, but his wife says that he left on FBI business and expected to be gone for a few days. She has no idea where he went, and is surprised that the FBI doesn't know where he is. Fornell will have agents stationed outside the home as a precaution.
At Sgt. Dempsey's home, DiNozzo warns her that the intruder was a contract killer. "So you want to give me a medal?" she asks. DiNozzo still doesn't believe her story... he doesn't believe that she would have been attracted to Tolin. She tells him that she has a "father complex".
In the squadroom, Fornell provides records of the cases that involved Tolin over the last few years. Arlington police found a stolen car a few blocks from Dempsey's home; it's been towed into the NCIS garage. Tolin told the FBI director that he needed to take a few days of personal time, which doesn't agree with what he told his wife. During the discussion, Ron Sands delivers a life-size cardboard cutout of Tony and stands it up, looking for approval. Gibbs gets a call from Abby and leaves the squadroom, slapping the back of the cutout's head as he passes. DiNozzo winces.
Abby and McGee are in the garage. Even though it's only been a few minutes since the stolen car arrived, she has found something significant for Gibbs. A camera underneath the front seat had surveillance-style photographs of Dempsey. Dempsey was the killer's target, not Tolin! McGee track's Dempsey's cell phone to a rehabilitation center in McLean, Virginia.
McGee and Ziva visit the rehab center. A therapist recognizes Dempsey's photograph -- Dempsey had just left after visiting with her brother, Judd. Judd tells them that he had been caught in the cross-fire between two rival drug gangs and was shot in the back. He's now paralyzed from the chest down.
In the squadroom, the team summarizes. Judd was an innocent bystander, shot while Dempsey was in Afghanistan. His shooter, Gene Abbott, was caught and cooperated with police, providing information to help them catch other members of the drug gangs. In return, Abbott was granted immunity and given a new identity. The deal was recommended by (surprise!) Gary Tolin. It appears that Dempsey wanted revenge. She deliberately sought out and seduced Tolin in order to find the location of her brother's shooter. Cell phone records show that Dempsey and Tolin had met at Dempsey's house several times over the last few weeks. Tolin has disappeared because he realized he passed confidential information on to Dempsey. Dempsey is now chasing her Abbott. Phoof!
In the squadroom, the team is trying unsuccessfully to locate Dempsey. Ziva realizes that Abbott may have hired the hit-man to kill Dempsey if he was discovered that Dempsey was searching for him. In MTAC, Fornell is on the video screen with Gary Tobin. Tobin apologizes. He realizes that he was used by Dempsey, and gave her the information on Abbott. Tobin will be resigning from the FBI over this indiscretion. Fornell provides Abbott's current location -- he's on a farm in rural Maryland.
The team arrives at Abbott's farm. The house is empty, and Dempsey's pickup truck is parked beside the barn. As they approach the barn, they hear Dempsey talking to Abbott. We see that she has bound him to a chair, and wired an explosive device across his legs. There's a visible mercury switch -- if Abbott moves just enough to tip the mercury switch, it will explode. He's anxious, sweating, trembling. Dempsey is telling Abbott that he's a coward; that he can stop this situation with one quick move, and that she'll put him out of his misery when she's ready.
The team bursts in through the door. Without turning around or even flinching, Dempsey calls out "You guys are good!" Abbott is fearful, worried about the bomb, worried about what Dempsey might do. Dempsey tells Gibbs that Abbott has been like this for a couple of days. Gibbs offers to call the bomb squad, but wants to ask Abbott a few questions first. "You put out the contract on Sgt. Dempsey?" Gibbs understands that Abbott might want to talk to his lawyer before answering, but it might take some hours to get one. Abbott finally confesses that he did send the killer, but says that it was done in self-defense. Gibbs asks Dempsey to disarm the bomb, she tells him that it was a fake. She wanted Abbott to suffer, to feel like her brother does every day: stuck in a chair, constant pain, unable to do the simplest things without help, and be at the mercy of others.
Back at Gibbs home, Fornell is cooking Italian food and says he's trying to "curry favor". Gibbs tells him that Abbott was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and that he doesn't plan to charge Sgt. Dempsey with anything. Fornell thinks that ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) will bring charges, but Gibbs doesn't believe that any jury will convict her.
In the squadroom, Tony has arrived early in the morning. He's eager to see the new recruitment brochure; Ron Sands is meeting at that time with Director Vance for the final approval. He offers to autograph copies for Ziva and Tim. Sands walks down the staircase, and Tony jumps up to meet him. The director was very pleased with the new brochure, it looks beautiful, but they didn't use the shot of Tony at his desk. Or the ones from aboard the ship, or in Abby's lab, or on the shooting range or in the break room. Sands tells him that the Director wanted the image to be one of authority, and pulls a picture out of an envelope. The cover shot is one of Gibbs giving the camera a flinty-eyed stare, emblazoned with the words Integrity, Service and Leadership.
Tony is crestfallen, but Ziva saves the day. "Isn't that a piece of your shoulder there, Tony?" "Yeah! Yes, it is! Look, right there!" Tony perks up with a smile. Phoof!
Roll the closing credits.
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