Na stavbě je nalezeno tělo mrtvého muže. Když asistent patologa Jimmy Palmer chystá tělo na převoz, vypadne mrtvému z kapsy pas. V nestřeženém okamžiku nějaký muž pas ukradne. Když se za ním Jimmy vrhne, muž vytáhne zbraò a vystřelí. Krátce na to se najde na stavbě další tělo, zalité v betonovém sloupu. Abby zjistí, že se jedná o muže, jehož totožnost si přisvojil muž, jehož tělo bylo nalezeno jako první. Podle všeho jde o srbského občana a mužem, který na Jimmyho vystřelil, je jeho bratr...

A navy building is being retrofitted. Two male construction workers use the elevator (lift) to get to the upper floor. The two men are chatting about the female office worker when one of them gets a call from him. The second man needs to head to the office and sign his time card. The guy smiles and teases his buddy as they exchange banter over who saw her first. As the elevator lowers, the first man's face drops and he stops the elevator. He sees a dead body on the roof of the elevator.

At the NCIS pit, Tony gets off the elevator finishing a phone call on his cell. He sees Ziva and McGee playing a game of scrabble. McGee informs him it's a lesson to help Ziva with her English. McGee points out he is beating her by 50 points and then says she'll have a hard time using the letter "Q" to make a word. Ziva accuses him of cheating. McGee claims he didn't cheat, he simply counted the tiles on the board and came up with it through process of elimination. Ziva outsmarts him and makes the word "Qi" twice on the board, scoring 62 points and beating McGee. McGee challenges her win when Gibbs rounds the corner. McGee hurriedly shoves the game and tiles in Ziva's desk drawer. He tries to say he wasn't playing but teaching Ziva and they all tease him about losing.

The NCIS team shows up to process the crime scene. Gibbs chats with the foreman and one of the construction workers. He is told the dead man is not part of the construction crew. Upon the third floor, McGee's fear of heights is pretty obvious as he holds on tightly when he has to go near the edge. Tony teases McGee about it and jokingly gooses McGee with one of the crime scene numbers (#3 to be exact). Ziva removes the dead man's wallet to reveal his name (last name is Baxter). They finish taking photos, processing the scene and Ducky announces that the time of death was 4AM. McGee, Tony and Ziva head back down to the ground while Ducky and Palmer remain with the body.

Ducky heads down to fetch the gurney, leaving Palmer to remove the body from the roof of the elevator. When he does, a passport falls out of the man's back pocket. Palmer retrieves the passport and looks at it. He realizes the photo is of the dead man but the name is different. The name on the passport is Milo Suskavcevic. Ducky calls out to Palmer from below. Palmer drops the passport next to the body and goes to the edge to see what Ducky wants. Ducky teases Palmer about parking to close to the building so Ducky can't get the gurney out. When Palmer returns to the body, the passport is gone. He hears a noise and sees a figure moving to his right. He calls out thinking it's McGee. He follows the figure and calls out for Ziva but nobody answers. Palmer hears Ducky call the elevator down but rather than return to the body, keeps looking for the person he saw. The figure moves runs out from behind some pallets and Palmer yells and chases him. The man jumps over the side and as Palmer goes to follow, the man pulls out a gun and shoots at Palmer. Ducky hears the shots and runs towards them. He finds Palmer face down on the ground.

Back at NCIS, Palmer is uninjured but frightened. Gibbs and Vance chat and Vance heads in to interview Palmer. Palmer is flustered and cannot recall anything. When Vance asks him to describe the man, Palmer says the man had beady eyes and look "reptilian." Vance sighs and says "So we're looking for a beady eyed reptile with a big gun?" Vance asks Palmer how many feet they were from each other but Palmer is unable to answer. Palmer begins to draw it out to "triangulate" the crime scene to determine the footage. Vance stops him and sends him home, but orders him to see Abby in the morning.

Tony and Ziva head out to Baxter's address, which is a trailer park. Upon arrival, Tony jokes that they must have missed the twister. The camera pans to an empty lot because someone drove the camper away after Baxter was found dead.

Palmer tries to work with Abby on a computer generated sketch. Abby calls the final sketch "Dr. Jekyll." She erases it and attempts to try again. He feels frustrated with his inability to recall anything and the fact that he didn't stop the guy. Abby tells him he is baby Gibbs, which pleases Palmer.

Gibbs gets updates from the team. They are able to determine that someone made a phone call from the man's phone 4 minutes after Baxter's time of death. Initial reports don't reveal much other than Baxter has no criminal record, hadn't filed tax returns in 10 years. Gibbs points out a 5 foot gallon of a chemical that does not belong on a construction site. He tells Tony to get on it.

Gibbs heads down to autopsy and Ducky reveals the man did not die from the blow to his head. Baxter had been hit in the head and fell on top of the elevator. He lay there and died from the injuries and blood in his lungs. Gibbs realizes the man was alive long enough to have made the last phone call from his cell phone himself. Ducky detected a white substance that Baster had been breathing in. He tells Gibbs he sent the substance up to Abby to analyze.

McGee prints out a lot of color copies of different passports. Once again, Palmer is unable to provide much in the way of details. All he can tell McGee is that it was blue. Palmer feels frustrated and asks McGee if Palmer should have been able to stop the gunman before he got away. McGee politely tells Palmer that he is an experienced NCIS agent so he's the wrong person to ask. This seems to make Palmer feel a little bit better. Palmer wants to try anything to remember so McGee brings him to Abby's lab. Here, Abby tries hypnosis. She gets Palmer to go under and starts to ask him about the passport. Palmer smiles and says he sees brown leather and describes the brand and shoe size. Abby yells at him and tells him to put Ziva's boot down. She tries again and says her name to Palmer. Palmer smiles and describes Abby's boots, brand and shoe size (10). Abby yells at him to pull him out of it. Frustrated, McGee goes to leave as Abby blows out the candles she lit to help Palmer relax. Palmer begs them to try again. The second go round looks to be helpful as Palmer describes a man's face in great detail. Abby and McGee are excited as they come up with a composite sketch. Abby brings Palmer around and shows him the sketch. Palmer says "two shots." When McGee and Abby look at him, he informs them he described the man who makes his coffee in the mornings.

When Abby runs a test on the white substance Ducky sent her, they realize it was something that was in the building. Gibbs realizes the only way Baxter could have inhaled it was by drilling. The team heads to the construction site to see where Baxter had drilled. They discover Baxter had been drilling in the structure beams. They use some high-tech equipment to look through the concrete and discover skeletal remains in one of the support beams.

Abby does more research and calls Gibbs down. She shows him that she was able to match the marks on Baxter's head wound to one of the construction tools. She shows Gibbs an animated demonstration. She also tells him she found traces of copper on the man. Gibbs is pleased and kisses her cheek on the way out.

The team brings back the construction foreman that they had initially interviewed. The man confesses that he was selling the copper for $4 a pound. He had gone back in the wee hours of he morning to get some copper. He was spotted by Baxter, who came after him. He hit him in the head with his cutting tool in self-defense and Baxter fell onto the top of the elevator. The foreman left the scene but not before washing off his tool. As he didn't use bleach, they find traces of Baxter's blood on it. When Palmer goes into the observation room, he informs them that while the man may have killed Baxter, it's not the same man who shot at him.

Palmer is struggling with not remembering the details. He is sitting at a laptop with an email started to his mother telling her "It has been a rough week." Gibbs walks up behind him and startles him. Palmer asks Gibbs how he works through the fear. Gibbs said you don't, it's just what you do with it. Gibbs suggests Palmer hold off on sending the email until later, Gibbs figures Palmer will have something to share then. Gibbs leaves as Palmer discards the email and shuts down his laptop.

Palmer heads up to the office and only Ziva is there. He asks her how someone like him should have handled the situation with the shooter. Ziva demonstrates to him. She hands Palmer a stapler and tells him to pretend to be the shooter. When Palmer aims the "stapler", Ziva pins his head down to her desk and disarms him. When they do it again, Ziva pins him yet again. Ziva jokes and says he should not have chased the man. Palmer notices the scrabble letters in Ziva's open desk drawer. He sees the letters "M" and "I" together and realizes he knows the name on the passport. He brings the scrabble letters to Gibbs and with Ziva's help, they determine the man's name was Milo Suskavcevic.

Gibbs walks into Abby's lab. She is sitting drinking a Caf-Pow with a bowl of popcorn. She is watching a scan for a match on a face. Gibbs pulls up a chair and grabs the bowl of popcorn and watches with her. Abby explains that she was able to take the concrete mold of the skeletal remains and come up with a sketch of what he really looked like. While she's chatting away, she gets a hit on her search. The man is identified by an injury claim, 12 years earlier. The skeletal remains belong to the real Baxter.

Gibbs has the team dig up more information on Baxter. It turns out 12 years earlier Baxter had been injured in a construction accident, sued and was awarded $2.1 million to be paid out over 20 years. Milo had come to the United States, killed Baxter and assumed his identity. He had buried Baxter in one of the support beams of the building as it was being constructed 10 years earlier. With the building undergoing retrofitting, Milo was afraid he'd be found out so he had gone to find the body and pour acid into the beam. This chemical, as we learned, would remove all DNA traces of the victim, allowing Milo to continue his charade. Upon further search, McGee turned up that Milo had come to the US with his brother. He did a search and found the brother was living in yet another trailer park. He pulls the address up on the screen while Gibbs, Ziva and Tony grab their weapons. They begin to head out to find the brother and Palmer tries to follow. Gibbs tells him to stay put, Palmer can see the man when they bring him in.

Gibbs, Ziva, McGee and Tony storm the trailer. They find they'd just missed Milo's brother. A small black car pulls up and idles nearby. In the car sits Palmer, watching the team search the trailer. He is startled when Gibbs pounds on his window, demanding to know what Palmer is doing there. Gibbs orders Palmer to remain in the car and returns to the trailer. A few moments pass when a truck pulls up and stops on the other side. Palmer turns and realizes it's the man who shot at him. The man is watching his trailer and sees Ziva inside searching. The man starts his truck back up and begins to take off. Palmer realizes the man is going to get away so he puts his car and gear and speeds towards the truck. Palmer ends up crashing into the truck to head the man off. As Palmer looks up from the crash, the man looks out his truck window and recognizes Palmer. He reaches for his gun and aims it at Palmer when Gibbs yells for him to put his gun down. Ziva and Tony disarm the man, get him out of the truck and cuff him. Gibbs walks over to Palmer's car and yells at him, demanding to know what he thought he was doing. Palmer simply states that he did not get out of the car. With a slight grin, Gibbs hands Palmer a tissue for his bloody nose and tells him "Now you have something to write home about." Palmer puts the tissue to his nose and grins.