NCIS started with a man driving in a red car down a road while talking to someone on the phone. While he is driving, we see a man stopped off the side of the road next to a car, watching the red car. Eventually, he pulls out a huge weapon and fires it at the red car. The man in the car watches in shock as the shell comes toward him, which then hits the car and causes it to explode.
The next scene has Tony and Ellie talking to Abby about Burton Moore, the officer from the last episode. They are telling her all the information they have found out about him, including his previous stint in the Peace Corps. When Abby sees McGee, she calls ‘Code McBlue’ and they turn off the screen.
Tim is suspicious of their actions and pulls up the monitor. He worries at first that Abby thinks he’ll be jealous, but they tell him that him being the overprotective big brother is getting old. When Gibbs comes to tell them about the case, he tells McGee the same thing. When they arrive at the scene, the body is nearly burned beyond recognition. McGee finds that the car is a rental under the name of a man called Angus Clarke.
Ducky recognizes the name, which belonged to someone he knew. As he begins to talk about where the man lived, McGee also calls out the same address. The dead man is Ducky’s old best friend. We next see Ducky watch Palmer clean the body while Gibbs comes to talk to his friend. He offers to let someone else autopsy the body, but Ducky says no, citing previous autopsies he did on close friends, including Agent Kate Todd and former NCIS director Jenny Shepard.
Ducky goes into autopsy and Jimmy tells him he did X-Rays. Jimmy attempts to make a joke, telling Ducky he wanted to make him smile. He goes to ignore the joke, but Ducky asks him to finish it. He smiles hearing the punch line and then sees the X-Rays. Surprised at what he sees, Ducky goes to look at the victim’s teeth. He realizes the victim is not his friend Angus, considering he had once knocked out his friend’s tooth during a fight.
We then see a young Ducky in a flashback, who is trying to get a ticket where is heading off for the Royal Army Medical Corps. He gets stuck listening to the agent go on about old history before a friend of his saves him from having to listen. The man is a young Angus Clarke, who begins to try and stall his friend from leaving. Young Donald Mallard realizes his friend must have put together a surprise party for him. At first, he thinks the party is elsewhere, but Angus whistles and a group of girls come to surprise Donnie.
Abby is in the lab with Gibbs and tells him that the murder weapon was a shell from a tank weapon. Plus, the GPS in the rental car indicated the victim was coming to NCIS. The victim had dossier files on naval officers who all had died in different accidents. Abby then gets hit on who the victim is. His name is Samuel Colpepper, a man who works for Angus Clarke.
Apparently, Colpepper had come to Washington with Angus Clarke on business and decided to stay while Angus went back home. However, Angus hadn’t been heard from since he got back. As the team discusses the case, Gibbs assigns them to different tasks, with Tony going to find out more from the businessmen Angus met with, McGee looking into whether the naval officer deaths were actually accidents, and he sends Bishop to go to England, where Angus has reportedly been revealed to be missing. Ducky ends up going with Bishop.
Ducky and Ellie arrive in England, where they meet Gareth Godfrey, who is Angus’ personal assistant. He tells them Angus doesn’t want anyone in his office. However, a woman comes up, Margaret, who is Angus’ wife, and tells Godfrey they can look in his office if it means getting Angus home to finalize a divorce. Ducky looks at the woman, stunned, as he knows who she is.
We see a flashback of young Ducky partying with Angus and Margaret. He gets a bow tie from his friends, as well as a surgeon’s scalpel. He tells them he is going into obstetrics, as he is tired of seeing dead bodies. Margaret is unable to get Angus or Ducky to dance, so she gets up as Ducky watches.
Ducky and Ellie go to Angus’ office to search for information. Ellie finds an e-mail Angus sent to Colpepper with dossiers on three more naval officers. As they are searching, they discover a half naked woman, who runs out of a room and leaves before they can say anything.
At one of the businesses, Gibbs breaks up a fight between two men as Tony watches. He interviews one of the men, Peter Velo, about Angus and he reveals Angus had been there shortly before going back to England. He had been meeting with Angus to discuss opening a hotel in America. Gibbs tells Velo that Angus is missing and that Colpepper is dead.
Abby and McGee are in the lab, where Moore is briefly brought up before Abby decides she doesn’t want to talk about it. Gibbs comes in and Abby reveals that she found information from the autopsies on the naval officers showed their deaths were suspicious, but wouldn’t have been apparent. They realize the victims were murdered and as McGee is discussing the cause of death for each victim, they discover one victim on the list is still alive.
Commander Buckett is running when McGee and Gibbs stop him. He is confused about why they want him and when he discovers the hit list, he doesn’t think anything is wrong with him. After drinking his water, he begins to cough violently and collapses. McGee quickly calls 911. He is eventually declared stable and had an allergic reaction.
Meanwhile, Ellie and Ducky discuss what has been happening, including that the woman they found in Angus’ office, who claimed that Angus had offered for her to crash in the bedroom after she was kicked out of her apartment. Margaret arrives in time to hear, but she declines to know more. Ducky passes her a folder of the photos of the officers and their hands touch. Seeing Ducky and Margaret share a moment, Ellie expresses a desire to see Big Ben and leaves.
A flashback shows a moment between a young Ducky and Margaret. After she puts the bow tie on Ducky, he declares he loves Margaret and wants her to come with him when he leaves. He kisses her, but then an awkward moment occurs when Angus comes by. The reaction by Margaret leads Ducky to realize that they are together. As she leaves, Ducky and Angus get into a fight, with Ducky knocking out his teeth. Back in the present, Margaret answers a question from Ducky (my screen paused so I didn’t hear it) with ‘You left. And you never came back.’
Palmer tells Tony, McGee, and Gibbs that the allergic reaction was caused by shellfish residue in the water and Palmer backs away to let the team discuss the case. However, he doesn’t leave as he watches them figure out that the replacements for all of the dead naval officers were Albanian-American. Palmer applauds the team for their good work. Sad news then comes from Bishop when we find out that Ducky’s friend Angus was eventually found at the bottom of a river.
Ducky goes to tell Margaret about her husband and she is upset. Ducky walks over to a table and sees that his scalpel that he left behind is still there. Margaret goes to leave, knowing she has to tell Angus’ employees, and when a crying Gareth Godfrey shows up, they realize they know.
A medical supply clerk is in interrogation with Tony, but he denies knowing anything about any crimes. Tony goes to talk to Gibbs. McGee comes in and tells them that he found that all of the replacements had listed the same emergency contact, whose name is Gareth Ahmeti, a man associated with the Albanian Mafia. His alias is Gareth Godfrey.
Godfrey is with Ducky and Margaret, feigning being very upset. Meanwhile, the team is trying to figure out how to find Gareth, who they realize is running a smuggling ring. Palmer, who has been eaves dropping, reveals he knows who Godfrey is because he helped Ducky Skype with Palmer. He reveals Godfrey was Angus’ personal assistant.
While Gareth is talking, Ducky gets a phone call from Gibbs. Realizing what is going on, Ducky tries to talk with Margaret in private. However, Gareth pulls a knife on them.
The team are all on their phones trying to save Ducky, with Gibbs telling Ellie to hurry back to the hotel while Tony and Tim try to get police involved.
Godfrey is still talking to Ducky and Margaret and threatens them both, after admitting to murdering Angus. When he moves toward Ducky, the man, who had earlier reached for his scalpel when Godfrey wasn’t looking, uses his weapon to nick his brachial artery, which would cause death within 90 seconds. Ducky considers saving Godfrey, as long as he reveals why he killed his best friend.
They find out that Godfrey and someone else were running a prostitution ring out of the hotel. The only reason Angus allowed it was because they had threatened Margaret’s life. Colpepper had been going to NCIS with the information he had about the smuggling ring so NCIS would take Godfrey down and Angus would be free. Ducky asks if he’s willing to die for whoever he is covering for and if he is, then he says, ‘you’re welcome to be my guest.’
After finding out who was working with Angus, Tony and Gibbs go back to the import-export facility, where they talk Peter Velo from earlier. After a few words, the man tries to flee, but McGee is ready with his gun drawn. Gibbs apologizes to the businessman, Mr. Kowolski, but he’s more than happy Velo is being arrested.
Ducky and Ellie are outside looking at the sights. She tells Ducky that they are getting ready go to go the airport and asks if he wants to go to the hotel. Margaret soon joins them, so Ellie leaves once again. Ducky and Margaret share a moment, with Margaret admitting she had chosen to love the wrong man. We discover that Margaret had gone to the train station the day Ducky left, but did not go with him. She asks Ducky why he never married.
He reveals that a good friend, who we realize is Gibbs, lost his soul mate and lost himself over and over again as he dated women in order to find her again. He didn’t want to go through that. Margaret asks what happens now and Ducky shows her the ticket he still has for her. He tells her he just wants to enjoy the moment with her without asking anything.