NCIS uspořádá pro malé skauty Den otevřených dveří. Když se malí návštěvníci dostanou k Abby do laboratoře, odebere od jednoho z nich na zkoušku otisky prstů, aby jim ukázala, jak probíhá zjišťování totožnosti lidí. K překvapení všech, zjistí z databáze hledaných osob, že chlapec je nezvěstný od roku 1998. Gibbsův tým se dá do pátrání po jeho pravých rodičích. Osudovým se stane hledání pro DiNozza, protože má s tímto případem společného víc než si myslel...

McGee's scout troop is visiting NCIS and Abby is giving a lab tour. A mini-DiNozzo gives her grief about her tats, so she distracts him by taking his fingerprint and running it through the database. He turns out to be abducted so he gets kept at NCIS HQ.

Opening credits.
Team learns that the father technically abducted his son when his dead wife's parents won custody but he ran away with the child rather than surrender him to the in-laws. Team wants to interview the dad but he is teaching people to survive in bushland, and when Gibbs interviews the second wife at her home, she says he has no phone contact nor did she know of his past. Team gathers evidence from his house including his computer and takes it to HQ where Abby lifts dad's fingerprint and finds that he is wanted for murder too. Plot thickens.

Ziva has phoned metro cops cold case squad and they promise to hand-deliver their file on the old murder. DiNozzo is appalled at her naivete as hand delivery means the metro cops want in on the search for the solution to their cold case and will move into the NCIS office...and Gibbs wont like it. DiNozzo was right (although Gibbs is most mild in his reaction to the metro cops, merely stopping them from going on the manhunt in the bushland).

Gibbs goes to Jen (it is late Friday night by now and she has been reading Stars and Stripes military newspaper and we see that she is looking at an article about Lt Col Hollis Mann that says she has moved to Hawaii, having retired after 22 years service...Jen hurriedly folds the paper and hides it from Gibbs.) Gibbs matter of factly says he wants Jen to sign the paperwork to have social services take the child (Carson) as the team cannot do babysitting. Jen decides to take Carson home instead. She then opens the file that Gibbs handed her to find it is a case file and not social services paperwork and she realizes that Gibbs set her up.

Jen takes the kid home. He nicks Jen's phone, calls Gibbs and lures him over for a talk (Gibbs takes an hour to turn up, indicating that he realises that the kid wants comfort and doesn't actually have new info to help them find the dad). Gibbs arrives to find Carson sprawled in an easy chair listening to jazz, drinking cocoa and resembling DiNozzo. Carson confesses to the ruse of false information but says he wants to ask Gibbs questions. Gibbs answers the questions seriously and without patronising the kid. They finish so Carson brightly asks to watch Letterman but Gibbs says time for bed. Kid asks to finish the cocoa. Gibbs nods and goes to leave. Jen has been watching from doorway and remarks, sotto voice, how good he is with kids. Gibbs says the kid couldn't sleep because he was worried about his dad. Jen comments that he isn't worried anymore: Gibbs turns to see that he is curled up and out like a light. As Gibbs then leaves the house, Jen comments that it is the first time they have been alone and not "working" since...and Gibbs says "Paris". She indicates that he can stay the night and he turns her down. She comments that she left him previously because she had to do what was right for her and still does. He just nods and leaves.

Tony and Ziva drive and then trek through the night to go to the survival campsite using a map that McGee had found on Dad's work files on his computer. Ducky and Palmer do a "forensic analysis" of the man's mind (and decide he is a loner and the sort who could exhibit rage...i.e. commit murder). Abby, taking time off from babysitting duties, manages to find the satellite phone number of the dad (using Jen's mobile phone that the kid nicked). . Gibbs is able to phone T-Z to warn them that the dad knows they are on his tracks. McGee picks up signal from the dad's cellphone and T-Z are guided to find it: but it turns out to be in the back of a flatbed truck being driven by an old man (i.e. the dad discarded it to put T-Z off the scent, so to speak).

Clues lead to a friend of the missing dad. When Gibbs and McGee arrive, the man is dead: stabbed. The phone has blood on it and 911 has been dialled. Ducky indicates that the assailant knew the victim because there are no defensive wounds (Palmer actually spots this and Ducky concedes Palmer is correct). It is looking like missing dad has killed his accomplice in the dime store hold up and shooting (the cold case murder).

At NCIS HQ, the cold case metro cops are trying to cement the "dad is our man" idea in the NCIS agents' heads, whilst Abby is being unhappy with the metro cold case forensics work. She works out that evidence has been planted (because a hair contains a colourant which was not on the market at the time of the murder and thus was planted in the metro evidence file after the fact).

Gibbs gets a phone call from the missing dad who says he wants to talk. Phone call is traced to payphone in Rock Creek Park. Metro cops and T-Z turn up there with Gibbs and McGee, to find the dad.

One of the metro cops stumbles across the man and points gun at him. In their conversation, metro cop confesses that he committed the murder and by chance was able to frame the missing dad for the crime. Turns out that Gibbs knew this because when cop is about to shoot the dad, Gibbs steps out and the dad reveals his NCIS flak jacket, and that he was wearing a digital recorder to capture the confession. Team arrests the cold case metro cop...whom Tony never liked anyway.

Conclusion has Tony trying to beat the kid Carson top score on the Hollywood Trivia quiz. The kid likes all the things that DiNozzo likes (movies, women, Magnum's Ferrari...which he has as a single bed and, when DiNozzo saw it, DiNozzo wondered if it came in king size). As Tony gets to the last question that will let him take over the kid's quiz score, he thinks he has the answer right...but turns out he misspelled it and thus the kid wins. Tony bows to the mighty kid, who graciously says a mere handshake will do (they then do a most complicated handshake which they cannot have done before...showing how alike they are in their thinking). Then kid's parents arrive and there is a happy reunion. Abby says she will miss the kid. Tony mumbles that the kid reminds him of someone but he cannot work out whom...and Ziva and McGee just shake their heads in their amusement that Tony does not recognise himself. Gibbs smiles at the reunion, looks up and sees Jen looking wistful, turns away, and just smiles at the happy family.