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5.15 In the Zone
| ◄ Previous Episode | Season #: 5 | Episode #: 15 | Air Date: April 29, 2008 | Next Episode ► |
In The Zone
| Synopsis: |
| When a mortar attack in Baghdad turns into a murder investigation, two members of the NCIS team are sent to Iraq to solve the case. |
| Episode Recap: |
| Several marines are playing basketball in the "zone" in Baghdad. Suddenly, they are under a mortar attack and everyone hits the deck. When the attack is over several of the men stand up to assess the situation. They realize Captain John Rankin is still lying on the ground so they go over to check him. One of the soldiers turns over Rankin and they discover he has a fatal wound to the abdomen. In the NCIS squad room, Ziva and McGee are looking at a picture on his computer. Tony walks in and asks what's up and Ziva tells him it's private. She then posts a picture of McGee and Jethro (the dog from "Dog Tags") on the big screen. McGee takes a bit of ribbing from Tony and Ziva. Gibbs walks in and gets called down to autopsy. Ducky shows Gibbs Rankin's body. Ducky tells him the wife pulled strings to get Rankin's body delivered to Ducky for the autopsy. After examining the body, Ducky tells Gibbs that Rankin wasn't killed by shrapnel from the attack but by a gunshot wound. They realize the mortar attack was a stage for murder. Tony walks back into the pit and teases McGee about not having photos up of him and his "girlfriend." McGee informs Tony that the dog's name is Jethro and it's a male. Tony says, "Hey, whatever your preference." Tony goes to his desk and starts to typing and with each key, a sound of a dog barking came from his computer. He demands McGee fix it immediately and McGee replies, "You're barking up the wrong tree." Tony figures he'd be funny so he sat on the keyboard releasing non-stop barking noises until Gibbs walks in. Tony and Ziva brag about how they'd been to Baghdad and McGee hopes that he'll be able to go. Gibbs has the team give him a quick rundown on Rankin. They pull up his information on the screen and realize Rankin was a millionaire by the time he was 30. Tony makes a comment about Rankin's trophy wife and then a woman walks up behind him and says Rankin was a reservist who had been called to active duty. When Tony asks who she was, the woman replies, "The trophy wife." Gibbs interrogates Dina Rankin. He asks if there were any enemies and his wife says one, Kelvin Ridgeway. She explains there was a deal with a piece of property called "Cloverfield" and her husband had the papers to buy the land. At the last minute, he refused to sign them, going with a gut feeling he had. Gibbs goes into MTAC with A.D. Leon Vance. They speak with Marine Major Ike Varnai who says he liked Rankin and they inform him Rankin had been murdered, not a victim from the mortar attack. After they disconnect the teleconference, Vance asks Gibbs who he should send to Baghdad. Nikki Jardine is in the bathroom washing her hands. Ziva walks in and notices Nikki has a paper with "5 reasons why I should go to Baghdad" lying on the counter. Ziva grosses Nikki out by asking her why she would want to go with all those germs there. She continues to taunt her about getting sores on her face and stuff oozing out of it. Nikki is adamant she wants to go. Ziva tells her that she hopes she can handle the competition. Gibbs and Ziva pay a visit to Kelvin Ridgeway. The man is quite obnoxious, making sexual references to Ziva. They ask him about the deal and Ridgeway claims he didn't know why Rankin refused to sign. Ridgeway tosses a hand-exercise ball at Ziva and says to Gibbs, "Wonder what you tell the wife about this one" (referring to Ziva). Gibbs smirks and gets up. Ridgeway asks about it and Gibbs tells him he wouldn't mess with Ziva and leaves. Ziva tosses the ball back at Ridgeway and leaves. Ridgeway looks down to see that Ziva crushed the ball with her bare hands. McGee visits Abby's lab. He is excited and wants the opportunity to go to Baghdad to prove himself. He was aware Tony and Ziva had been already so he wanted the chance. McGee explained that Tony had discouraged him from "volunteering." McGee was talking with Abby about what he should do (basically he talked in circles!). He ended up not going to Vance to volunteer as he didn't want to seem overeager and he figured that's what Tony assumed he would do. Vance walks into the pit as Ziva and Gibbs return from their interrogation of Ridgeway. Ziva sees Nikki heading into the pit and they "race" to get in front of Vance. They both argue their point on why they should be sent to Baghdad (Ziva said she had contacts there and Nikki said she did too -- and hers were still alive.). Vance looks at McGee and says he was surprised McGee didn't volunteer as it was a great opportunity for an agent. McGee says Tony didn't volunteer either and Vance says Tony had spoken with him earlier. Vance assigns Tony to go to Baghdad with Nikki as his partner. McGee and Ziva are disappointed they weren't able to go to Baghdad. Ziva looks up world clocks on the Internet, specifically Baghdad; McGee notices and tells her that Nikki and Tony had been there for 45 minutes already. Ziva says they were probably checking into their hotel. A convoy pulls up outside a hangar in Baghdad. Varnai gets out and shows Tony and Nikki their "hotel" while they were there. Varnai leads them into the hangar, full of cots and tells them it was overflow for visiting military. Nikki is upset that she doesn't have any privacy. She grabs her towel to shower when Tony shows her that the water coming out of the faucet is brown. She whips out a box of towelettes and washes her hands and face. Varnai returns to take them out to the crime scene. Tony asks Nikki why she wanted to be in Baghdad and she jokes that it will be good for her resume. Varnai isn't overly friendly while dealing with Tony and Nikki. He first brings them to the basketball court to interview two witnesses. A civilian contractor, Allan Hayes, claims he didn't really know Rankin well and a Sgt. who claimed Rankin was a great soldier and an overall great guy. They dismiss the two men and check out the scene. Tony and Varnai discuss the mortar attack that provided cover for the murderous gunshot, and that the insurgent who made the attack had been taken and killed by members of an allied tribal militia (Neighborhood Watch with AK-47s). Tony realizes the shot had come from behind Rankin and has Varnai bring him up to what was a family residence. When Tony turns to call Nikki, she was on the phone, speaking Arabic. He goes up without her and realizes the shot had come from the residence. He looks on the floor and points out a shell casing to Varnai. Tony calls Nikki up to translate questions and answers with the Iraqi woman. The residence belongs to a man who had died, and only his brother has a key. The woman says a man named Ali Mahmoud had been in that room and she hasn't seen him since the mortar attack. She provides them with his address. When Varnai, a team of soldiers, Tony and Nikki arrive at Mahmoud's home, they find a hysterical woman. The woman claims Ali has been taken the previous night by hooded men and she believes they plan to execute him. (Perhaps the same tribal militia who killed the mortar attacker, though this is never made clear.) Gibbs interrogates George Stenner. Rankin had contacted Stenner the day before his death. Rankin had Stenner do a confidential soil test on the Cloverfield property before he would sign the papers. Stenner acts nervous and keeps asking to go to the bathroom. Gibbs refuses the first time and Stenner tells Gibbs he'd provided Rankin a soil testing on the property. The soil test revealed that the property was contaminated and full of heavy metals (lead). Stenner says he'd only sent out one copy of the report, to Rankin, but he'd email Gibbs a copy. Stenner asks to go to the bathroom again and Gibbs tells him "no," and then laughs and lets him leave. At "hotel" Baghdad, the camera pans to Tony and Nikki's clothes strewn about the floor. You can hear them making noises which imply they are being intimate. Finally, we see Nikki and Tony are excited that they got "three bars" on the computer signal for their laptop so they could teleconference with the rest of the team. While awaiting their video feed, Tony tells Nikki that "for someone who hates germs so much, you're a slob." Tony challenges Nikki again as to why she wanted to come to Iraq. Nikki reveals she has a brother, a Marine, who was in Iraq 2 years ago, and was wounded. The feed comes through and Abby tells Tony how much she misses him and asks him about the neat-nut Nikki. Tony shows Abby that Nikki is there. While Abby fumbles over her apology, Ziva hisses in her ear that Tony and Nikki couldn't be sharing a room! Ali Mahmoud's brother was killed a month ago in a crossfire; Rankin's squad was involved. Tony tries to get Abby to find the missing Ali Mahmoud (a member of the Al Shammar tribe) as Varnai walks into their hangar. Tony disconnects when Varnai gets testy about their reasons for being there and not being able to find Ali. Nikki makes a phone call to a contact (also a member of the Al Shammar tribe) and gets help on finding Ali but Varnai refuses to bring them into that zone after dark. The next morning, Varnai, a team of soldiers, Tony and Nikki go out looking for Nikki's source. When they stopp, Varnai talks about attacks made on troops when they were stopped. Suddenly Nikki bolts out of the vehicle and walks ahead. Varnai (and Tony) isn't happy and gets the team to surround and check out the area. A young Iraqi boy walkesout and one of the soldiers draws his weapon on him. It turns out this is Nikki's source, Jameel. Tony blasts Nikki for endangering everyone's lives and asks her to tell him the truth about why she wanted to be in Baghdad. Nikki admits her brother had been shot in that very spot and she wanted to be where it had happened. Jameel saw it happen. He will also help them find Ali. Nikki and Jameel discuss his younger sister, who can no longer go to school, since their father died. Jameel goes with them and leads them to the group holding Ali. The group leader is hostile and according to Nikki makes reference to knowing Tony's mother very well and very intimately. They get permission to see and talk to Ali and Tony enter the building where Ali was being held. Gibbs and McGee interrogate Ridgeway again when they discover Ridgeway had called Steiner six times. When they bring up the soil report, Ridgeway basically doesn't care and claims he didn't know what they were talking about. Gibbs asks him if he didn't mind waiting while the rest of the team locates the man who killed Rankin so they could talk to him. After a few minutes, Gibbs phone rings and Tony informs him that Ali was dead, his tongue had been cut out. They question the guard on Ali's door and he says he'd brought Ali dinner the night before and hadn't seen him since. He had heard Ali making noises but ignored him. Jardine says that cutting the tongue out is not part of this tribe's culture, so perhaps someone unfamiliar with their culture had done it to mislead their investigation, possibly Varnai. Tony begins to check time of death with Ducky instructing him over the phone when Varnai walks in, trying to get them to leave. Tony follows Varnai out while Nikki continues the process of cutting into Ali's body. Tony gives Varnai a hard time and tries to pin him down about killing Ali. Nikki walks out and informs Tony that Varnai couldn't have done it because Ali had died four hours earlier and Varnai has been with them the entire time. Tony apologizes to Varnai and says he was just doing his job. Nikki complains about the smell in the room Ali had been held. When Tony asks, she says it was turpentine and it was giving her a headache. He asks her if she felt like that any other time during their trip. Nikki tells him she had while questioning the civilian and Sergeant upon their arrival. Tony realizes that Allan Hayes is a civilian contractor who had access to turpentine so he calls McGee, who does a background check on Hayes. Gibbs and McGee uncover that Hayes has a criminal background and is under investigation for bribes while in Baghdad. They were going to have Tony question him until they discover Hayes is on his way back to the US. Gibbs orders Nikki and Tony back to NCIS. Gibbs hands Ziva a copy of Stenner's report and McGee the report found with Rankin's belongings. The two reports differ. McGee realizes Rankin had done his own check, discovering a ceramics plant had been on Cloverfield years before. This plant left the land contaminated. They also discover the contract to purchase the land was missing from Rankin's belongings. Before Nikki and Tony leave, Nikki explains that her brother had been shot. He was dying in the street and a local man came out to give him CPR until other help came. When other Marines arrived, they assumed the man was an insurgent so he was killed. The man was Jameel's father; he had saved Nikki's brother Eric's life. Nikki delivers the laptop computer they brought to Jameel and his sister, Tabina, before they leave Baghdad. Gibbs and McGee show up at the airport. They see Hayes arrive and McGee assumes Ridgeway will be meeting him. Gibbs asks McGee why he is certain Ridgeway knew about the deal when they see a man approach Hayes. They walk up to them and Gibbs greets George Stenner. Stenner doctored the report he gave to Rankin saying the land was fine. Rankin had a gut feeling it was wrong and did his own check and discovered Cloverfield had had a ceramics factory on it years prior. He knew Stenner had lied to him and refused to sign the papers. Stenner provided Gibbs with the correct report to cover his own hide. Hayes hired Ali to shoot and kill Rankin when they realized Rankin knew the truth. When Hayes realized NCIS was there, he learned where Ali was being held so he sneaked in and killed him. Hayes then boarded a plane to return to the US. Stenner admits he had only done it for the money. Nikki arrives at a hospital to visit her brother. Turns out her brother is in a coma. She tells him she saw Jameel and his sister. She then puts in a CD of music they used to listen to with their parents when they went on vacation. She asks him if he remembers...... |
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