Borderline - Recap

A military hummer arrives in the desert. Walker is the driver, and he
hit every rock over the last six miles. Hastings sees something, and it
turns out to be a runner. They announce U.S. Marines, but he keeps
going. Two of them go back in the Hummer, and the rest go on foot to
catch him. The Hummer hits a landmine and goes up in flames. Somebody
yells “AMBUSH!” The team is under fire. Outside the Hummer, we see a
sign. “State of California Seismic Monitoring Equipment”.

Kensi pulls up to Deeks. He’s going method, undercover as a homeless
man, and truly reeks. He asks for a lift and she refuses. He yells
“Thanks, partner!” as she pulls away.

Callen and Hanna are training together. Callen comments that if Hetty
has her way, they’re going to be reusing bullets. Hanna says we’re
saving the planet but Callen counters “Don’t come crying to me when she
replaces our toilet paper with used Post-its.”

The guys see Getz is on the firing range, and they go in to talk to him.
Callen asks Nate where he’s been, and says Hetty wouldn’t tell them
anything. He says they can discuss it over a beer, but right now he has
to go touch base with her. Hanna says “that was weird”, and Callen
responds “even for Nate!” They look at the target, and realize that
somebody has been giving Nate shooting lessons.

Deeks says there’s something wrong with the hot water heater. Hetty
tells him it’s on a timer, and he obviously exceeded it. Kensi says
there should be an exception made in his case. Callen and Hanna arrive,
and the gang’s all there. They watch the footage of the Hummer accident
site. One of the marines escaped, but three are still missing. Callen
notes that this doesn’t look like Afghanistan and Hetty corroborates his
impression. She states that it was filmed just after sunrise outside of
San Diego on the California/Mexican border. The marines were assisting
ICE and customs and border control in securing the area. The fear is
that the marines either stumbled across, or were specifically targeted
by one of the Mexican cartels that use the area to smuggle people, guns,
drugs. Nobody has yet to claim responsibility for the ambush. They
haven’t even come up with a motive. Kensi says she can think of a few.
Payback, leverage, prisoner exchange.

The one marine who did escape was Corporal Allen Reed. Because the team
has ongoing cases and intimate knowledge of the cartels, Director Vance
has asked them to get involved. Callen tells Deeks that he and Kensi are
to check out the crime scene while he and Sam question the marine who
escaped. They’re also going to question their cartel connections and see
if anybody knows who is behind this. Deeks says he’s more of a city
mouse and he thinks it would be more logical to send the former Navy
SEAL out there with Kensi. Callen tells him it will be a good experience
for him. He says sure it would, but he has a very fair complexion and
he’s worried about burning, whereas Sam here is African-American, and
Africa is hot. Hanna says “I’m from Brooklyn”. Kensi grabs Deeks by the
arm and drags him off, saying they’ll call if they find anything. He’s
muttering “Norwegian-American” as they head out the door.

Hanna says he’s going to kill Deeks, Callen feels he’ll grow on him. Sam
says “so does ringworm”.

Kensi introduces herself to Major Orly as NCIS and Deeks as LAPD Liaison
Officer, Detective Marty Deeks. They are informed that the marine who
escaped doesn’t remember much. Marty is sceptical, but the Major asks
him if he remembers his first firefight.

They find Montoya’s body, one of the missing marines. He has a sign on
him written in Spanish, which translates to “Now to you we bring the war”.

The marines are doing a 100’ swath with border patrol in both
directions. Orly’s guess is that they’re going to try to smuggle them
into Mexico if they haven’t already done so. Kensi says she found SUV
tracks heading in the other direction, and she’s pretty sure they are
heading away from Mexico. The major abruptly excuses himself. Kensi asks
if she just got blown off, and Deeks says yes, like Ronald McDonald at a
PETA convention. He asks her how certain she is about the tracks, and
she says she’d bet his life on it. She asks him if he wants to go for a
ride and he takes that for sexual innuendo.

Hanna is talking to Eric on his cell. Tells him to check aerial
surveillance for the area, going back at least a month. Whoever did this
has been planning it for some time. Callen suggests they check with the
other agencies, see if anybody’s picked up any related chatter. Hetty
says they’ve already done so. Also, Corporal Reed has been given a clean
bill of health and is ready to be questioned. He’s waiting at the boat
shed with Nate. Hanna asks why Nate seems so distant, and Hetty says
it’s probably just jet lag. Callen asks a leading question, trying to
determine where Nate has been, but Hetty just calls it ‘his assignment’
and they get nothing as far as new information goes. Hanna asks where he
was exactly, and Hetty says he was in the People’s Republic of None of
Your Damn Business. She’s also the one who gave him some shooting pointers.

Blye and Deeks take the bikes out to look for clues. They stop when she
loses the SUV’s trail. Kensi finds the tracks again, and they are headed
west. She says her dad taught her everything she knows, and asks Marty
about his relationship with his dad. He said his dad hates him, he told
him so, and then he fired a shotgun at him. That’s why he hates
Thanksgiving. That was six years ago though so maybe his dad is dead by
now.

Marty goes to pee by a bush and is startled by a rattlesnake, so he
shoots it. He tells Kensi that snakes freak him out ever since his
friend’s boa constrictor tried to kill him.

Corporal Reed is being questioned. He remembers telling the runner to
stop, but he doesn’t and next thing he knows, they’re taking fire from
all directions. He thinks the blast was enough to knock him unconscious
because he believes he blacked out. When he came to, the humvee was
destroyed and everybody was gone. He is told that Montoya was found that
morning, and that Hastings and Walker are still missing. Reed believes
he got the runner with a head shot, and they tell him that Montoya was
killed with a head shot. He asks if they thought he did this, and Callen
turns the question back on him. He says yes, because he was in charge,
and so he is responsible for everything that followed. He’s more worried
about Hastings, because she's pregnant. He was the only one who knew.
Nate asks if Reed is the father and he says no. Montoya was.

Getz, Hanna and Callen are discussing the questioning. They don’t know
if the cartel theory makes more sense or if there is a love triangle,
and Reed killed his fellow marines. Nate thinks he’s genuinely
traumatized. Callen calls Kensi to see if she found out anything, and
she says no. He tells her they are going to go find their favorite
snitch, J.J., and find out what he knows. They agree to let each other
know if they find out anything.

JJ runs from Callen, and Hanna clotheslines him. They ask him about the
Mexican cartel, and he says he knows nothing. They threaten him so he
spits out the name Emilio Ortego. Callen says he got blown up last week,
and J.J. says yes, and when that happened everybody started scrambling
to fill his spot. He says the guy who’s going to get it is Memo Torres.
Callen tells him if he sees him selling anything other than star maps,
he won’t even call LAPD, he’ll run J.J. over with his car himself.

Hetty asks Nate about Reed. He says he’s afraid. She asks if it’s for
his fellow marines, and he says no, for himself. There are worse things
than death, for a marine. The conversation shifts imperceptibly, and
they end up talking about Nate. He says yes. He wants to go back. He
hasn’t discussed it with the others and he would appreciate it if she
didn’t either. She agrees.

Hetty finds Hanna looking for a former alias. She says no, that alias is
compromised. NLV means No Longer Viable. Hanna says his cover was never
blown, and he spent seven months working Memo Torres. He says this alias
is the only way to contact Memo Torres today. She says Tyrell Ellis has
a price on his head. She doesn’t like it, but Callen backs Hanna.

Hanna and Callen arrive. Hanna goes in to make contact with Torres, and
Callen calls Eric, asking him to identify the principles in the photos
he just took. Memo tells Terrel he should have stayed away, and one of
his thugs goes and locks the door. Terrel tells Memo he almost had a
safe corridor set up until Torres screwed it up by kidnapping a bunch of
marines. Torres says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Hetty calls Callen and tells him Director Vance would appreciate an
update. Hetty says that the fact that she hasn’t heard anything on the
police scanner indicates Sam is still alive. Callen says Sam knows he
has to play it cool. This statement is followed by a body flying out the
window of Torres’ place. Sam has Torres in a headlock, and cuffs him.

Kensi and Deeks follow the trail until it could have gone one of two
ways, and they don’t know which.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service. That’s what they tell Torres. He
responds that he’s not in the navy. They tell him that because what he
did was against marines on active duty, according to the Patriot Act,
that’s domestic terrorism.

Nate pulls them out of the meeting to tell them that the only thing
found in Memo’s shop was a couple of unregistered handguns and some
cash. No contraband, no drugs, nothing. Hanna says except for the fact
that he did try to kill him. Nate is going over the surveillance photos
Callen took at Memo’s place. The one guy that’s not a player is Donald
Wexling, he’s a multi-million dollar textile manufacturer. He’s a
high-profile business and community man. He won’t want an obvious
connection to a drug dealer. They should lean on him. Callen asks Nate
for more info on Wexling.

Kensi and Deeks find what looks to be a cartel site, and they call it in
to Eric.

Hanna and Callen approach Wexling. Hanna tells him they are federal
agents who would like to ask him a few questions. He tells them that he
has to pay Memo extortion monies to keep his people and businesses safe.
He tells them he has to do this because they aren’t doing their job in
“the war against drugs”. If they have any other questions, they should
ask them through his attorney.

Kensi and Deeks eyeball the two missing marines in the camp they found.
They are both injured. There are three shooters. Kensi and Deeks are
heading out, and Callen is asking Eric to get him a lift out of there
now. The cartel guys see the bikes, and give chase on ATVs. One of them
fires at Deeks. His big spins out and he hits the dirt.

Kensi knocks out the marines guard, and tries to hide the marines. She
also attempts to contact Deeks but he’s laying on the ground. When one
of the cartel kicks him to try to make sure he’s dead, Deeks flips over
and shoots him. The rest of the cartel is looking for the hostages.
Deeks shows up and opens fire. They arm the marines, and Kensi calls
Eric to tell him they are pinned down. The cartel has a grenade
launcher, and the team in the copter is still ten minutes away. Kensi
sees a vehicle nearby they can take. Deeks says he’ll draw their fire,
and she and the marines can make a run for it. While Deeks holds their
fire, she attempts to hot wire the SUV. As she is doing so, the
helicopter arrives. The guys in the copter take out all the cartel guys
and NCIS clears the area.

They don’t look like Cartel members. They’re working for Donald Wexling.
He refuses to answer any questions without his attorney being present.
Hanna says because they have proof he paid to have U.S. Marines
kidnapped and killed, he’s going to need a whole team of attorneys.

Nate’s packing up and heading out. He tells Hetty she’s taught him a
lot. She tells him he’s an important part of this team and he always
will be. They say good-bye.



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