Last week’s episode of NCIS began with a group of Vietnam veterans on a tour to visit the memorial Wall. But before their tour got there, one of the men, Henry Rogers, is about to leave when his guide, Corporal Andrew Beck, tries to encourage him to go back. But things take a turn when Beck suddenly collapses.
In the bullpen, Tim comes to tell Ellie some news he heard from a friend of his he had been visiting for dinner the night before. Apparently, years ago when Alex was a FLETC instructor and Torres was in classes, they had a fling. However, Ellie doesn’t believe it. Their discussion is interrupted with news of a body.
The team goes to the scene to interview the veterans and other witnesses. Since Henry had stayed away from the group, it meant Beck had to as well so no one interacted with him. Gibbs and Torres go over to Henry, who is done answering Tim’s questions but Gibbs informs him that they need him since he’s a witness.
In autopsy, Ducky tells Gibbs about finding a microscopic dart that had been embedded in Beck’s arm. Abby comes to them and informs them the victim died of botulinum poisoning. She tells them that toxins like these are being sold on the dark web and there is no way to trace where they come from.
Ellie continues dishing to Tim about the fling between Quinn and Torres, saying that a friend of a friend of hers saw sparks during a karaoke competition. When Alex tells them Nick needs help interviewing Henry, Ellie goes up to take care of it. The rest of the team updates Gibbs on Beck, who was very clean and had done extensive volunteering. His girlfriend told them someone had called claiming to be looking for him at work. Since they can’t pinpoint when he was given the toxin, they need Henry’s help.
Unfortunately for Nick and Ellie, Henry does not want to wait around. But Ellie is able to play into his feeling of compassion for the victim so he sits down to talk. He does tell them at one point during a visit to get coffee, someone spilled coffee all over Beck. After giving the information, he tries to leave but Nick stops him.
Clayton is in Vance’s office with Gibbs and the Director. He wants to go back to MI-6 because he misses being in the action. However, they want him to stay on to do investigative work. Gibbs has the idea to have him act as an escort for Henry. However, it doesn’t go so well since Henry acts up with Clayton, at one point getting out of the car when they are stopped in traffic.
Alex and Nick go to the coffee shop to talk to the barista, who still has the stain on her shirt. However, it doesn’t look like she is responsible for what happened. In the lab, Abby tells Gibbs that based on evidence off the dart, Beck was injected after the coffee shop outing. Tim gets information from one of the places Beck volunteered at that there was a security breech and calls from the time Beck was working were deleted.
Ellie finds out from Tim that there is actual cell phone footage of Nick singing karaoke. They see what they think is the back of Alex’s head watching. Since they can't determine that anything did happen from the evidence, they decide to talk to their co-workers before Gibbs gets them back to work.
They were able to find out where the hacking was done but there are around 30 tech specialists who could have hacked into the database. Ellie asks to take Alex to the crisis center to find information before he takes a call from Clayton.
He goes to see that Henry is handcuffed to the table. Quietly listening to both Clayton and Henry arguing their points, Gibbs simply tells them to “work it out” before leaving again, much to their dismay.
Ellie and Alex go to talk to Benjamin Harmy at the crisis center. Before he arrives, Ellie tells her about the rumor but Alex claims it is not true. They find out that Beck took three calls, one of which was a caller who stayed on the line for 48 minutes from a private number.
At the hotel, Clayton tries to see if they can contact anyone to welcome Henry back home, but he claims not to have anyone. The two of them continue to have animosity toward each other.
Abby shows Nick and Gibbs a welcome mat she is making for Henry to make him feel good. Then she informs them she was able to find the call came from a woman named Maya Davis. However, when they go to talk to her, they find her body in her car beside a note she had written with the single word, “form.”
Ducky confirms to Gibbs that Maya was killed the same way as Beck. The only connection the two have is the phone call she made to the hotline. Gibbs is determined to find who is responsible.
Alex and Ellie tell Gibbs that Maya didn’t have any problems other than an ex-boyfriend who she got a restraining order against. Ellie tells them Gibbs she was still home when she was injected so he tells her to have Tim and Nick look for evidence.
Clayton is on his way back to Henry when he is stopped by Vance. He has a mission that he could put Clayton on. Excited for the opportunity, Reeves updates him on the detail, saying it is going well. However, when he gets to the interview room, he discovers Henry has escaped.
Tim and Nick have not found anything that could tie to the dart in the apartment. After looking around, Tim asks about the rumor, but Nick denies it. When Tim tries to ask about the karaoke, Nick interrupts after finding pencil shavings in a bottle for allergy medication. When the building manager, Dale, comes by, he tells them Maya would usually go for a walk around the neighborhood before work.
Clayton goes to Gibbs in a panic that he can’t find Henry. However, Gibbs already has an idea of where he is. It turns out he is at the memorial wall, having wanted to go pay his respects by himself. Gibbs and Clayton talk about how all three of them refused to let anyone in but then made their own decisions on how to deal with it. For him, he made a new family with his team.
In Abby’s lab, she is working on security footage to find out who Maya interacted with before she died. Henry arrives to look at the footage as Abby tells Gibbs that the pencil shavings were related to flooring and contained formaldehyde, which could make people sick who use it. Henry recognizes the woman in the security footage as the one who took his taxi, Bridget O’Leary.
O’Leary was the manager where Maya worked and had purchased the flooring, even signing an environmental report saying they were safe. Maya had opened an e-mail account with a reporter to discuss what happened. The team goes to get her, but when she spots Nick and Ellie, Bridget tries to escape.
After evading the two agents and claiming to a co-worker she was being chased, thus temporarily blocking Nick from getting to her, Gibbs arrives to arrest her. Tim and Alex then interrogate her, giving her the story of how she killed both Maya and Beck. She refuses to talk.
In his office, Vance is about to give Clayton his assignment, but he surprises the Director by asking to consider the offer.
Ellie shows Alex the video of Nick singing, but continues to deny that anything happened. Tim and Nick arrive to inform them Bridget had gotten her cousin in Florida to hack into the crisis center and call Beck’s home to ask where he was. Tampa police had arrested him. The team decides to go out to decompress and after Ellie and Tim leave, Alex and Nick have a conversation that seems to imply the rumor was actually true.
Clayton and Gibbs take Henry home to a big surprise: They had gotten other veterans and soldiers together to give him the welcome home he didn’t get upon his return from Vietnam. Clayton then tells Gibbs he declined the mission to Syria.