This week’s episode began with Tim’s girlfriend, Delilah, back at work at the Department of Defense. She is going through some information as her co-worker updates her on what’s been going on since Delilah was away from work. Delilah finds information that stuns her and she calls for their boss. They mention how a naval intelligence officer was killed two weeks earlier in Europe during a bomb explosion, but that the European division didn’t find anything. But a series of e-mails Delilah has been going through proves an operative is in the states.
After explaining what they found, their boss presses some keys on the computer, shutting down the files they were looking at. She tells them they never saw anything and leaves, leaving Delilah stunned.
After the credits, we see Tony in the squad room, holding a pair of keys in his hands. Tim has just informed him he wants to ask Delilah to move in with him. While they are talking, Tony gets a call from Delilah, who tells him not to tell Tim it’s her. Tony heads off toward a storage closet, where we find a cut out poster of him in there as well.
Delilah called to ask Tony about a murder case in Europe of Naval Officer Kit Jones, who died in the explosion mentioned earlier, but Tony tells her it hasn’t been solved. Delilah asks if there’s any information about a classified investigation. She has already hacked into every federal database but found nothing and wants to talk to Gibbs. As Tony and Delilah are speaking, the door opens and Gibbs and Tim appear. Tony hands Gibbs the phone to talk to Delilah, as he takes the cut out poster and leaves.
Delilah, Tim, and Gibbs are in the interview room discussing what Delilah found. She tells Gibbs how Jones was killed trying to take down an undercover website that sold everything from “drugs to hit men.” She has a lead on the case, which is an address in Virginia that she found through the e-mail exchange. Tim tells them they don’t have a search warrant, but Delilah took care of it, telling them the landlord will let animal control check for rats in the apartment.
Tony and Tim go to the apartment, where they tell Troutman they are concerned about his last tenant, whose name they were given was a fake. To keep up appearances, Tim tells a story about Mexican chinchillas, who breed with common house rats. Troutman tells them how the person who owned the apartment cleaned it more than any other residents, and that it smelled like bleach. Troutman agrees to let them look around, declining not to go since he has a bum knee and will be having surgery. Tony and Tim search the apartment, where Tim is only able to lift a partial print from the toilet, as well as finding a used tissue. Everything else has been wiped clean. Tony gets a call from Abby, who tells Tim the mystery renter was Kit Jones.
In the squad room, the team goes over the Kit Jones case and they find information about a website called the Phoenician Exchange, which is a weapons trafficking website Jones had been trying to shut down. Jones had previously tracked the website’s previous host, Heidi Partridge, who is in jail on trafficking charges. After suggesting Jones could have gone to work for the bad guys, Ellie brings up Kit’s fiancée, Melody Hanson.
Jones’ fiancée comes in, telling Gibbs about how they were supposed to be married very soon. She is clearly distraught, telling Gibbs how her fiancée was a good serviceman. She mentions some information about an agent calling to check on her, only to stop the day before the explosion that killed Jones.
Tony and Tim go to talk to Partridge. She will only talk to Tony and Tim through happy or sad faces drawn on sticky notes. However, she doesn’t give much information, and mentions someone had already come to make a deal with her. Tony and Tim check the visitor’s log, but there’s no name. As Tony is about to talk to Gibbs on his cell phone, his phone gets jammed. Tim’s does as well, but it’s not a lock from the jail. They figure out there’s a man sitting in a gray sedan and they go over to stop him from interfering. It turns out the man is Agent Jim Brisco with the CIA.
Gibbs and Vance are talking to Brisco, who informs them Jones had been pulled from the investigation for an undercover assignment. The hotel explosion had been a cover. The PX case overlapped with a money laundering operation going on and Jones was investigating. Brisco brings up Trent Kort, knowing he’s given the CIA a bad reputation. Vance and Gibbs bring up Melody and the fact she doesn’t know Jones is alive. Briscoe wants to keep it that way for her own good.
Ellie is watching Melody, who is confused about what is going on, but Ellie can’t tell her anything. Gibbs and Vance come in, apologizing that their lead didn’t pan out. Gibbs apologizes on behalf of NCIS and the CIA, in order to gauge her response. She doesn’t know anything. When Melody leaves, Ellie suggests they try to find a vendor for the PX website.
Tony and Tim are on a stake out, watching over a drug dealer named Sampson, who apparently dated Delilah before Tim. Sampson apparently uses the PX website to buy and sell steroids. They get out of their car and go on a chase after the man, much to Tony’s chagrin.
The CIA and NCIS directors are talking about the case. Vance is curious how the CIA moved Jones back to the U.S. so quietly and why they don’t want NCIS to know anything. The CIA director mentions if they needed help, it would be FBI jurisdiction as protocol.
In the interrogation room, Tony and Tim are talking to Sampson, who agrees. But when Tim asks for his log in info for the PX website, Sampson doesn’t want to do anything that could trace back to him. However, Tony decides to use the fact that he dated Delilah for help. He suggests that Sampson could see Delilah if he gives them information, leaving Tim annoyed. Sampson agrees to a coffee date, supervised, of course.
Delilah and Tim are in Abby’s lab, where Delilah is talking about how the case brings up memories. Tim reminds her why he is so worried about what could happen to her if this goes bad. Delilah has found some classified D.O.D protocols on the PX tor server. They wonder who would have access to that, and surmise it could be Jones.
Down in autopsy, Gibbs, Ducky, and Abby are talking about the case. Abby got information from a tissue Tim had found at the apartment. It belonged to Kit Jones and the biological evidence indicates Jones was suffering from malnutrition and had been kept under the influence of a sedative. He is not a double agent after all.
In MTAC, Brisco is talking to the CIA director, who scolds him over what happened to Jones. Briscoe claims to have had no knowledge of Jones’ captivity, and that he had spoken to him through e-mail. The CIA, realizing that NCIS knows more about the case, decides to hand it off to them.
Tim, Abby, and Delilah are coordinating with each other, trying to figure out who has been accessing the PX website. Jones had left breadcrumbs for them to be able to hack into the website. They figure out someone at the Bluemont Medical Center is accessing it from there. The person who is at the center is Ronald Troutman, the landlord. They decide to send someone undercover to get the information off the computer, since it is being used at the hospital.
In the hospital room, Troutman is unconscious while his daughter watches over him. Ducky and Palmer come in, acting under the pretense of checking on him. They can’t get the daughter to leave, but then they offer her to change her dad’s dressings on his knee, and this convinces her to leave with Ducky.
Tim comes into the room and begins to get the information from the laptop, but that’s when Troutman opens his eyes and sees him. Tim is internally panicking, while Palmer tells him not to worry. Unfortunately, Troutman remembers the “violent chinchillas” Tim had been looking for at his apartment. Tim tells him they were at the hospital and they’re gone now. Troutman thanks him before passing out.
Tony and Delilah are in the squad room, where Tony is checking Melody’s phone records in case she’s a target. Delilah tells him she’s been trying to show she can do more in working this case and that there’s a job opening for a senior analyst in Dubai that she wants to take. As they are talking, they see that Melody, Jones’ girlfriend, has gotten six calls from Leo’s Restaurant, which was where Jones had proposed to her.
Abby, Delilah, and Tim are in Abby’s lab, where Abby is getting ready to encrypt the laptop. Delilah and Tim tell each other they need to talk to one another, but decide to wait. It’s then that Abby gives the bad news. The laptop has been wiped clean and they realize Troutman was tipped off.
Gibbs and Ellie go to Leo’s Restaurant, where a terrified man brandishes a gun at them. He asks what agency they’re from and Gibbs pulls his NCIS badge. They ask who he is just as Tony comes at the right moment to take the gun from him and they realize the man is Jones. He doesn’t believe they’re there to help him since that’s what the last guy said. When asked, he reveals it was Brisco, who had apparently held him prisoner.
Tony interviews Jones, who tells him about Brisco making up the operation as a ruse. Apparently, Brisco was selling Intel to the PX website. He was torturing him for security passwords. Tony tells Jones they didn’t find evidence of torture, but it is obvious Jones is upset, and he tells Tony he was barely able to escape.
Gibbs and Vance are discussing the latest developments. Ever since the CIA let Brisco go, he has been in the wind. They’re back at square one, but Gibbs mentions they have Troutman as a lead.
Ellie and Gibbs go to Troutman’s hospital room to interrogate him, but he claims not to know anything. As they keep talking, they come to realize he doesn’t know anything about computers. When given Ellie’s smart phone to call a lawyer, he is at a loss how to use it. Ellie mentions his laptop being wiped, but he says he doesn’t have a laptop. Ellie picks it up and asks whom it belongs to. Troutman immediately says the laptop is his.
Troutman’s daughter meets Brisco at Leo’s Restaurant, where they discuss the PX website and how Brisco had sold security Intel to her. She asks him to get her out of the country, but he declines. She transfers money to an account of his before making her way to a back room, where the team is. She had worn a wire as part of a plea deal, as long as she gives up the website, before Gibbs arrests her.
Back in the restaurant, Brisco is swirling his wine when Jones shows up. He is angry and punches Brisco. Tony and Tim immediately come to arrest Brisco, telling him he is worse than Trent Kort, who “never denied being a worm.” Jones turns to Tim and asks him for a favor.
Tim and Delilah take Jones to the courthouse, where he reunites with Melody so they can get married. Delilah is worried the courthouse will be closing, but Tim tells her he told the judge the circumstances. They begin to talk and Tim reveals he knows about Dubai and if she wants the job, he wants her to have it. Delilah tells him she’s changed, and she wants to take the job, but she still wants to be with him because he’s the same he’s always been. He then gives her the keys, for when she returns. Just as they are about to kiss, Jones and Melody come out. They need witnesses for their wedding. Tim and Delilah agree.