Dead Air - Recap

A radio fear jock is busy doing his job when a jeep pulls up. The man
inside gets his gun, goes in the radio building and shoots the man
outside the studio. From there we hear what happens by radio, as the
jock asks somebody to call 911. Several more shots are fired, then silence.

McGee and Tony bond over baseball. David finds this very disturbing.
McGee says it's the American dream, and Gibbs swings through to say you
need to keep the dream alive; three people aren't going to get that
chance. Everybody swings into action.

The call came in from a listener. The only witness is the body that was
the sound engineer; Vincent Clark. The Navy Officer who was scheduled
to be on the show is Commander Walter Daniels, Special Duty Officer in
the Office of Public Affairs. He was asked to give an interview on
foreign military policy by Adam Gator, who is married, no kids; he's the
third victim. Ducky said someone such as the Commander as a guest was
not the norm for this show. People would call in to be mocked and
berated by the host. Since said host took three bullets to the chest, it
would appear he was the primary target.

Tony plays back the final moments Gator was on the air. It seems that
Gator wasn't killed for something he said, but rather something he was
about to say.

Mrs. Gator is in for questioning. She tells Tony that Adam got a lot of
idle threats from redneck crackpots. She says Adam was a decent man, a
patriot, and he would have called the police if he thought they were
serious. David asked if she knew who "they" are, and the wife says no,
but he always kept every piece of mail. He also recorded every single
phone conversation both on the air and off, just in case. She hands over
the box containing all the information.

Abby is trying to teach herself blind sonar by using a clicker when
Gibbs walks in. She switches gears to welcome Gibbs to the world of
bi-neural audio. The clicking bit is linked to who killed Adam. Using
opposite speakers combined with acoustics, Abby was able to use
cataloged audio to recognize the weapon as a Remington Model 7400. A
hunting rifle.

David, Tony and McGee are reading all the letters to Adam from his
listeners. Adam finds one that looks interesting. It's a snake cut in
many pieces, labeled "Join, or Die". No postage, so it had to have been
dropped off manually, but was addressed to the station's P.O. box. McGee
starts looking for Matt L. in the post office database.

Ducky is doing the autopsies. He smelled an unusual odor when he was
collecting the bullets. According to Abby, the scent was deer urine from
an adult doe. Ducky's guess is that it was likely still on the shooter's
fingers when he loaded the weapon. Ducky tells Gibbs that based on the
radio station's location and who it reaches, his guess is that Gibbs is
looking for an outsider from the fringes of society. He theorizes that
because they feel voiceless, they felt the need to recruit Adam to be
their voice. But he refused.

Tony and McGee confront Matt L. about the letter. He claims that he
asked Adam to do some spots for the local Y, and the letter was just a
means of giving him a hard time for doing so. They ask where he was at
8:05 a.m., and he provides proof that at 7:49 a.m. he was 20 minutes
from the radio station.

Adam received a threatening call the night before he was killed, and
Abby plays it for Gibbs.

Caller: Have you given any thought to our offer?

Adam: I don't want anything to do with you, your group, or its "Grand Plan."

Caller: You should reconsider. MAH could use someone like you.

Adam: If it's air time you want, you're gonna get it. Tune in tomorrow.
I'm going to expose you and MAH for what you really are: domestic
terrorists.

Abby can't find any MAH. She's tracking the call, so far all she's got
is a blocked land line. The caller isn't calling from the backwoods,
he's calling from Royal Woods, which is one of the wealthiest gated
communities around.

Tony says the closest they can get to defining MAH is Military at Home.
They believe that we should protect the homeland first, rather than
acting as the world's police. McGee checks out Royal Woods. There are 35
houses, and everybody in the community has a squeaky clean record. David
says if they can get voice recordings of the men in the community, Abby
will be able to compare to the threatening call Adam received. They
don't know how they can get recordings without making everybody
suspicious, so Tony goes in as a prospective homeowner and asks
everybody questions about the neighborhood, the commute, etc.

When he returns to McGee and David in the car, he's out of breath from
chasing joggers. He tells them they know what he's been through, and the
agents respond that they haven't listened to him since the beginning,
because they can only stand listening to his voice for so long.

Abby gives Tony something to help his throat, after he chatted with all
those people. None of the voices are a match as yet. Abby tells him it
was so much more entertaining to hear Tony than Adam's phone calls. Tony
thanks her in his best Elvis voice, and tells her he'll be putting out a
CD. They get a match, a Mr. Arthur Haskell. He's a very successful
investment banker out of Alexandria, and there's nothing in his history
indicating any kind of activism, political or otherwise.

They discover that his wife was killed eighteen months ago in a home
invasion. He and his 16 year-old daughter witnessed the murder. McGee
goes through Haskell's email, and there are references to an anniversary
gift for his wife. Since the email referenced a custom wristwatch. McGee
says it was obviously a code. Gibbs asks him how he knows this. McGee
says that last week, Haskell met with a Mr. Deeter Johanson. He is not a
watchmaker. He is on the most wanted list for baking explosives and
selling them on the black market. According to Haskell's personal
calendar, the two of them have a meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Gibbs decides Johanson isn't going to the meeting, NCIS is. McGee
objects, as they won't have time to build an alias. Gibbs says they're
not going to need one. McGee erases David's past, and according to all
official records, she's back on the wrong side of the law; right where
she started out before joining NCIS.

Gibbs and DiNozzo intercept Deeter. Tony flashes his badge, and Deeter
announces he doesn't have anything on him. Tony runs a test on him. If
the stick turns blue, he's been handling some very bad things. It does,
and Tony places him under arrest.

Haskell drops his paper and sees David sitting across from him. She says
she can help him and his group. He says he's waiting for someone, and
she informs him Dieter Johanson won't be joining them today. She's Ziva
David - the competition. McGee takes pictures as Tony returns to the
car. Whatever is going on with his throat is getting worse. He asks
McGee how David is doing. According to Tony, she's not being true to who
she was five years ago. She was much more fiery, sexual, back when they
shared a bed. McGee reminds him they were undercover. They were just
putting on a show. Tony refuses to agree that they were just putting on
a show.

Ziva tells Haskell that Deeter's line of work made him an enemy to
Israel. Getting rid of him was for country. Doing business with Haskell;
that's for money. She believes she has something that Haskell needs.
Haskell asks Ziva where her allegiances lie, since she's a Masad
profiteer working on American soil. She tells him it doesn't matter, as
it's not her job to police America. She tells Haskell that she has other
customers, as Deeter had a thriving business. She wishes him luck, and
gets up to leave. He stops her and tells her to swing by his house after
he's had a chance to make a few calls.

Tony tries to interrogate Deeter but it's not going well, as his voice
is making every effort to leave him. Deeter asks him if he's been around
a lot of fresh grass lately. Tony says he did, what of it? Deeter knows
a bit about fertilizer. It turns out that being around too much of a
certain kind can permanently atrophy one's vocal chords. Tony tries to
play hardball with Deeter, but his voice makes him sound like a cartoon.
Gibbs takes over, and scares Deeter into talking. He doesn't want to be
Homeland Securities new poster boy.

He tells Gibbs that Haskell hired him to make a batch of explosives.
Haskell now has a bomb. Gibbs asks where it is, and Deeter doesn't know.
Tony asks why they were meeting this afternoon. Haskell was going to
sell him a detonator. Gibbs says Haskell is going to need a trigger, and
Deeter retorts that he's going to need a deal.

Tony is seeing Ducky about his throat. Ducky recommends 24 hours with no
talking whatsoever from Tony. This thought cracks Ziva up. Ducky gives a
film quote to tease Tony. Ziva guesses "Gone With the Wind", and Tony
fights his urges for a few seconds before he croaks "Top Gun".

Ziva arrives at Haskell's. He asks if she's armed, and she says of
course. He says she has a famous father, and she notes that he did his
background check, so they can get down to business. Where's the bomb? In
the chest freezer, under lock and key. He says that Deeter was going to
charge $150 for the detonator. David says he sold Haskell junk then. A
bomb that size would be $300,000, upfront. What's the target? He doesn't
answer, but asks where he should send the money. She gives him a piece
of paper with an account number on it. When the money arrives, it's
already been flagged by Homeland Security. The money was from Al Qaeda.

Haskell then escorts Diva outside, where a number of people are
gathered. Haskell's daughter, Kristen, reams him a new one for missing
her match that afternoon. He excuses himself to go chat with his
daughter. The postman, Matt Lane, is manning the grill. One of the women
knows who Ziva is, apparently Haskell shared his information. They tell
David that at least in Israel, their army protects their homeland. She
says that's because her homeland is at war. The woman's husband, Zach,
tells Ziva that they will make themselves a danger, and that way money
will have to be expended here, where it matters.

Ziva returns to the office very upset that she couldn't get the target
out of them. They go to the Haskell house to get the bomb, but Mr.
Haskell is unconscious on the floor, and the bomb is gone. Ziva tells
Gibbs that Haskell just regained consciousness and is being treated for
a mild concussion. Kristen refuses to see her dad, and is being talked
to by Child Protective Services. Gibbs orders Ziva to go talk to the
daughter. Ziva says the daughter has nothing to do with it, but Gibbs
insists.

Kristen tells her that she knows her dad didn't shoot the people at the
radio station. If he's involved in terrorism, he can rot in jail but she
knows he didn't do this because it was the one morning he took her to
soccer practice. He went to work late so he could watch the entire
practice. She tells Ziva that after her mom died, he totally shut down,
until they moved to Royal Woods. New place, new friends, he even went on
a hunting trip last year with Mr. Nelson. Ziva asks if that's Zach
Nelson, and Kristen nods yes.

Gibbs questions Zach. He says there's been a mistake. McGee brings in
his hunting rifle and the doe urine. Zach says it means nothing, he has
a right to protect himself. McGee shows him proof that they know he was
the killer at the radio station. Gibbs asks where the bomb is, and Zach
says Arthur Haskell has it. Gibbs says not anymore, and he was attacked.
This is all news to Zach. The gun and 'urine' were a bluff to get Zach
to talk. Zach finds out when Tony drinks the doe urine, aka chamomile tea.

Haskell wants his lawyer, and he's not saying anything. Gibbs tells him
his daughter deserves some answers. He has them turn up the lights in
the next room, and he can see Kristen. He wants to talk to her since
she's been through hell. Gibbs tells him this time it's his fault. He
wants to apologize to her and Gibbs tells him fine, he can start right
now by telling them who did this to him. Haskell says it was Matt Lane,
the mailman. He snapped. Matt and Zach got impatient, and reckless.
Haskell wanted to lay low, and wait it out. The target was a
communications tower at Norfolk Naval Base. They were going to destroy
it as a symbol. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. Matt Lane was the one
who was supposed to get the explosives on base, in his mail truck.

McGee tells Gibbs that Lane's GPS hasn't moved. His truck is still
parked at the post office, he called in sick this morning. Gibbs figures
Lane is changing targets. His boss says that he uses personal time to
coach girl's softball. Gibbs has McGee pull up the rosters. He says the
names look awfully familiar. Every girl on both teams has a high profile
parent. Gibbs says he's targeting the parents, and they head out.

They find Lane and place him under arrest immediately. They ask where
the bomb is, and he says they'll never guess. Ziva recognizes the grill
from her visit to Royal Woods. It's carrying too much gas for a simple
grilling; he's trying to create enough heat to detonate the bomb. They
start clearing the area, but Ziva runs right to the grill. She sees it
hit 700° and the glass on the temperature gauge cracks. She yells Tony's
name and tackles him right before the bomb goes off. Tony likes having
Ziva on top of him.

Ziva plays catch with Gibbs. Her father taught her.


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