A man is sitting in his car on a bridge, blogging about meeting a source. He is writing things about NCIS in his blog. He gets out of his car and walks across the bridge and looks down. He sees two construction men below. The construction men are gearing up for their day of work, one had just run out for coffee. The coffee man complains how they are two days behind and suddenly, the blogger’s body lands on a concrete slab in front of them, impaled by the metal sticking out of it.

In the squadroom, McGee is on the phone, looking concerned. He is making an appointment for Thursday and asks if something is wrong. He hangs up and remarks that it’s strange. Tony, flipping a pen around in his hand, asks if the comment was for their benefit to ask what’s wrong. McGee tells them he has to take another polygraph. Ziva remarks how he’d just taken his annual last week. McGee says he has to take the polygraph again. Tony takes the opportunity to tease McGee. He walks over to McGee’s desk and asks if he failed the polygraph. McGee says he didn’t, he just needs to retake it. Tony wants to know if McGee “came out” and McGee replies, “I don’t have anything to come out about.” Tony says, “Stick to that story McQueen.” Ziva joins them and figures it’s probably nothing. Tony continues to tease McGee about failing the polygraph. Gibbs walks in and Tony asks him if he ever failed a polygraph. Gibbs says “Nope, never took one.” Gibbs tells them to “Come on, we got a dead body.” Tony and McGee ask if it’s a sailor or marine. Gibbs tells them it’s a dead blogger, Matt Burns. “The pond scum whose been kicking our ass on the internet?,” asks Tony. They ask what happened and Gibbs tells them he doesn’t know but they are going to find out. As they start to head out, Ducky walks in and Gibbs asks if he needs him. Ducky says, “It looks as if your busy, it can wait.” Gibbs says he’ll find him when he gets back. Ziva asks if there is anything she can do from the squadroom and Gibbs ignores her.

Ducky asks if she still hasn’t been cleared for field work. Ziva replies that she’s still waiting for her status to be clarified. He says it would make him mad, how about her. “Are you asking as a friend or a forensic psychologist,” Ziva asks. He says it must be hard for her after all she’s been through, especially being stuck behind the desk. As he walks away, he says, “If you feel like talking, you know where to find me.” Ziva yells out and thanks him. Ziva pulls up Matt Burns blogging site on the internet.

The rest of the team arrive at the crime scene. Gibbs looks down and sees the Coroner’s office removing the body. McGee walks over to a detective, who notices he’s NCIS. McGee points out they got a print. Tony walks up and sees a woman bending over into the victim’s car. He remarks what a nice scarf she has, startling her so she beeps the horn. When she comes out of the car, he tells her the scarf brings out the color of her eyes. He tells her she shouldn’t be wearing it at a crime scene because loose fibers will contaminate the vehicle. Tony takes out his bag and identifies himself then asks if it‘s her first crime scene. The woman identifies herself as Detective Megan Hanley. As she removes her scarf, he tells her it’s a rookie mistake, they all made them. Gibbs walks up, flashes his badge and Tony introduces him. Gibbs says, “Matt Burns death may be related to a case we’re working on. What can you tell us?” Hanley says the victim died shortly after 6AM and nearly fell on the construction workers. The print they found didn’t match the victim’s shoes. McGee walks up and introduces Metro Detective Danny Sportelli and says he’s in charge. Gibbs flashes his badge and identifies himself. Sportelli remarks how awkward it is. He asks Hanley what she’s told them. She says she was just bringing them up to date. Tony remarks how it’s not much. Sportelli insults Hanley, he asks her, “You ran the ID on the vic, what did you say you did for a living?” Hanley tells him the victim’s name and what he did. Sportelli says, “He was trashing NCIS, says they were involved in a cover-up of a naval officer’s death.” Gibbs says not to believe everything he reads on the internet, they are trying to ties up a case, it would be nice to know if the crimes were related. Sportelli says, “I have to maintain the integrity of the crime scene Gibbs. I expect your cooperation. That includes the possibility of an NCIS cover-up.” This causes the Tony and McGee to look unhappy and a stare down between Sportelli and Gibbs.

In the squadroom, the team is watching a video of Matt Burns on his blog, beltway burns.com on LT. Rod Arnett. In the video, Burns says Arnett was killed in a weekend auto accident and NCIS closed the case saying it was an accident. Burns says his source at the Pentagon claims Arnett was an inside trader and NCIS was covering it up. Gibbs tells McGee to go over all the information on the Arnett case. Tony comments how Gibbs and Sportelli are going to come to blows over this case. Ziva asks who Sportelli is and Tony replies, “He’s the man tugging on Superman’s cape.”
McGee pulls up Burns’ blog and notices his last entry was at 5:45am, just before his death. The blog entry was that he was about to meet a source that would blow the case wide open. Ziva asks if Burns wasn’t getting to close to the case and somebody wanted him dead. Tony pulls up headlines in the blog and says that it’s a lot of people’s lives Burns ruined, including Federal Appeals Court Judge Thomas Victor . Thomas Victor withdrew his supreme court nomination after Burns blogged about it and damaged his career. Tony grabs his gear to head out to talk to Thomas Victor. McGee tells Tony to be careful and Tony asks if “big bad Sportelli” scared him off.

In autopsy, Ducky is playing with his new toy, a portable X-ray machine. He’s reading the manual but having difficulty getting it to work. Gibbs walks in and asks about his new toy. Ducky says he’d like to have a chat with the people who write the instruction manuals but he doesn’t believe they’d have a language in common. Gibbs cuts to the chase and reminds Ducky he wanted to talk with him. Ducky says he wanted to talk to Ziva, he suspects she’s been through a lot more than they know. He admits he tried to draw her out and wants to know if she’s said anything to Gibbs. Gibbs says, “Nope. I suspect she will when she’s ready.” After a moment’s hesitation, Ducky asks if there’s something else. Gibbs tells him he needs him to review Lt. Arnett’s autopsy file and he has Abby reviewing the forensic evidence. Ducky wants to know if it’s pressure from the Director and Gibbs replies, “I want to know if we were right.”

At the park, Tony is sitting on a bench with Thomas Victor. Tony asks when Victor heard about Burns. Victor says, “This morning. I haven’t stopped smiling since.” Victor says before that rodent crawled into his life, he was a respected judge, nominated for the supreme court; now he teaches business law at the community college. Tony ask the judge about Burns claim of plagiarism. Victor says he wrote a speech and borrowed a few lines from a book, it was stupid. He felt his supreme court nomination would have held up but Burns wanted to make a name for himself. Burns accused Victor of infidelity, taking kick-backs and accusing him of cheating in law school. Burns claimed the charges were from unnamed sources and it causes embarrassment for Victor and the Administration. Tony looks over Victor’s shoulder and sees Metro Detectives Sportelli and Hanley walking towards them. He tells Victor he’ll have to get back to him. Victor says, “Aren’t you going to ask where I was this morning?” As Tony begins to run away, he says, “I’ll leave that up to the Metro Police.” Sportelli sees DiNozzo and starts yelling for him, telling him to “Get out of here.”

Gibbs brings Arnett’s supervisor, Navy Captain Martin Armstrong and Navy Lieutenant Jessica Summers into the conference room. He wants to dig deeper to find out of there is truth to the insider trading claims by Burns. Armstrong says that Arnett had family money and a bright future, he had no reason to be involved in insider trading. Armstrong says that Arnett liked to drive his sports car really fast and then gets Summers to back up the claim. Gibbs asks about Arnett’s future with the Navy. Armstrong said his tour with the Navy was over in a few months and he was entertaining job offers that would make MBA grads envious. Gibbs asks about Arnett’s social life but Armstrong says they didn’t socialize outside the office. He turns to Summers to answer. Looking nervous and uncomfortable, Summers says they only talked inside the office, she had no idea who his friends were.

Abby and McGee are in the garage, Abby is uncovering Arnett‘s car. She is trying to understand why Gibbs wants her to go over the evidence again. While she babbles about what tests she’s already done on the car, McGee’s mind is on another track. He asks Abby if she knows NCIS Agent Susan Grady and if she’s a nice woman. He wants to know if Abby knows her enough to call Grady and find out why he has to retake his polygraph. Each of them begins talking over the other and they both stop and say, at the same time, “Your not listening to me.” Abby points to the car and says, “This was an accident.” McGee tells Abby he is really worried about retaking his polygraph. He asks her if she’s ever heard of another agent having to do this. She thinks for a moment and mentions another agent but he was let go. This news doesn’t sit well with McGee.

In the squadroom, Ziva tells Gibbs his hunch was correct. She reran Arnett’s phone records and noticed an unusual amount of calls to Jessica Summers. Based upon the times of the calls suggests they were more than coworkers. Tony jokes about fraternization in the workplace. Ziva points out that the calls stopped abruptly a month earlier. Tony wants to know who ended it and Gibbs wants to know why Summers lied. Tony says he’ll bring Summers back in and Gibbs tells him, “Tonight DiNozzo, tonight.” Ziva stops Gibbs before he walk away. She didn’t have anything better to do so she went through Burns blog. She pulls up a video from July 24th of the previous year on a Congressman. When she plays the video, she says “That is total salami.” Tony corrects her with “Bologna.” Burns claims he was in Atlanta where he met with the Congressman’s aid but his credit card records show he was in DC at a hotel bar having Martini’s. Gibbs has McGee pull up Arnett’s finances which show only his deposits from his family’s trust and his Navy paycheck.

A teary eyed Summers is in interrogation. Gibbs walks in, then towards Summers. He leans in her ear and says “You lied.” She says they know about her and Arnett being involved. Gibbs whispers in her ear again, “Who broke it off?” She lies and says she did, then confesses Arnett did because he was seeing other women. Summers is nervous, stands up, and asks if she can go now. Gibbs tells her to sit down. Behind the mirror, McGee and DiNozzo are making bets on which tactic Gibbs will take. DiNozzo bets it will be the father figure approach while McGee thinks it will be the classic “in your face” Gibbs. Ziva disagrees with McGee. Gibbs tells Summers that they are working closely with Metro PD. He runs through a bunch of file folders and says they have access to all Metro’s files and they found notes in Matt Burn’s office with her name on them. In observation, DiNozzo says, “The old you lie to me, I’ll lie to you. I didn’t see that coming.” Summers says Burns told her he’d never use her name. Gibbs responds that he lied and wants to know why she went to Burns. She was upset because Rod had dumped her, wasn’t returning phone calls. Gibbs asks if Burnett was involved in insider trading. When Summers says “She thinks,” Gibbs slaps his hand on the table and yells “You think.” This startles a crying Summers who tells him after the day an announcement was made about a contract, Rod came in with champagne to celebrate. When she asked him why, he said he’d made a lot of money on the stock market. She said she could read between the lines. Ziva says that Summers just connected the two cases. Tony says, “Arnett’s death wasn’t an accident.” McGee says this means we blew the investigation.

In autopsy, Ducky is going over the evidence of Arnett’s autopsy with Gibbs. Lt. Arnett’s death was accidental, multiple trauma sustained in an accident. Ducky gets a call from his counter part who is doing Burns autopsy. The other M.E. tells Ducky that Metro PD has classified Burns death as a homicide. He says it out loud so Gibbs can hear and then promises the other M.E. that he won’t breathe a word. When Ducky hangs up, Gibbs asks if Ducky’s ever lied to him like that. Ducky says no, never. Ducky says if the two deaths are related that means Arnett’s death wasn’t accidental. Ducky tells Gibbs if he had Arnett’s brain, he could conduct further studies but at the time, it didn’t warrant keeping it. They wanted the body intact for burial. Gibbs tells him to get the body, now. He tells Ducky to get the Director involved, get the full consent of the family.

Gibbs and DiNozzo walk into the conference room and Gibbs introduce themselves. The man sitting there introduces himself as Benjamin Franklin, Security Exchange Commissions. DiNozzo, who is getting himself some water, turns and looks at the man. Franklin says, “I know, I don’t look like an SEC investigator.” Tony asks, “Is that really your name?” Franklin replies, “Yes. And I’ve heard every imaginable joke so spare me.” Tony leans against the wall, drinking his water. Franklin explains that they’ve been taking heat since Burns broke the story. He can’t find any evidence of Arnett’s insider trading. He explains to Gibbs how it works and DiNozzo remarks, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Franklin tells Gibbs that they went back 12 months to review contracts awarded and only found one spike in stocks. Gibbs asks if he has a name. Franklin tells Gibbs yes, and pulls out his glasses and puts them on. DiNozzo says, “Nice bifocals Ben.” Both Gibbs and Franklin stare at Tony. Franklin tells Gibbs that a Will Sutton made $2 million when one defense contract was awarded. DiNozzo says, “What do we know about him Ben?” Franklin looks annoyingly at DiNozzo before stating that Sutton owns a small sandwich shop. They did a thorough investigation and couldn’t find any connection from Sutton to anyone involved with the contract or Burns. Gibbs phone rings, it’s Abby who needs to see Gibbs immediately. Gibbs tells her to calm down, he’ll be right there. He tells DiNozzo to get the information as he leaves. DiNozzo sits down and smiles at Franklin. Franklin says, “Oh dear.”

Abby is upset, telling a man she only takes orders from one person, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. “Unless he asks me to do it, it doesn’t get done,” she says. “ I think that’s going to change honey,” Sportelli says. Gibbs walks in and Abby tells him to make that awful man go away. Gibbs asks what Sportelli wants. Sportelli tells him he wants all the physical evidence from the Arnett investigation, including the car. Gibbs says, “We’re denied access to your investigation but you get ours.” Sportelli whips our a court order, which Gibbs reads. He tells Abby to give it to him. Abby picks up a clipboard and says, “Your going to have to sign the chain of evidence, Honey,” to Sportelli. Hanley says she’ll take it. Sportelli smugly gets in Gibbs face and says, “I hope you can look your boss in the eye and tell him you didn’t blow this investigation.” He calls for Hanley and they leave. Abby simply says, “Ugh.”

Tony goes to see Will Sutton. Sutton says he can understand why the SEC came to talk to him but not the Navy. Tony says, It’s because we’re investigating the death of a navy officer.” “What’s that got to do with me?” Sutton asks. Tony explains to him how he made a killing on a contract that had just been awarded and it’s tied to a naval officer accused of insider trading. Sutton says he got one lucky legitimate hit and everyone is after him. He asks Tony if he wants to see his box of unlucky lottery tickets, which Tony passes. Tony asks Sutton why he’s still making sandwiches if he won $2 million. He watches Sutton take out some meat and slice it up. Sutton says the SEC froze his account until their investigation is complete. He complains about having to hire a lawyer who is making more out of the deal than he is. “Pastrami looks great,” DiNozzo says.

In the squadroom, DiNozzo is eating a pastrami sandwich. McGee is complaining he found no connections between Sutton and Arnett. McGee sees DiNozzo’s sandwich and asks if it’s pastrami and then asks if he can have a bite. DiNozzo says “This is my dinner. You can have my pickle.” McGee says he doesn’t like pickles which DiNozzo replies “I know.” McGee, who keeps eyeing DiNozzo’s sandwich says the two men, Arnett and Sutton who couldn’t be any different. Sutton dropped out of high school to care of his invalid mother. DiNozzo says, “Who makes a mean sandwich.” McGee goes over the backgrounds of both men and then reminds Tony he hasn’t had lunch. DiNozzo shoves the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, then picks up the crumbs off his shirt and eats them. McGee looks disgusted and says, “I hope you choke on that.”

In autopsy, Ducky is telling Abby how in some cultures, exhuming a body is against their beliefs. He tells Abby a story about a process called “John Ghoul.” He says fortunately Lt. Arnett has only been buried for two weeks. He opens the casket and he and Abby stare at each other.

The team is in autopsy and discover Arnett’s body is missing. Gibbs asks Ducky when they last time he saw Arnett’s body was. Ducky tells him the Heavenly Glenn Funeral Home in Falls Church picked up the body. Gibbs sends McGee and DiNozzo to go to the funeral home but McGee reminds him he has to take his polygraph. Gibbs says he’ll handle it then tells Abby the casket is now a crime scene.

In the squadroom, a woman comes in looking for McGee. Ziva, whose sitting at her desk, tells her that he is out of the office on assignment. The woman introduces herself as NCIS Agent Susan Grady and wants McGee to know he missed his scheduled appointment. Ziva smiles as the woman leaves.

At the funeral home, DiNozzo is pacing while McGee is talking to the funeral director. She tells him that they picked up his body and brought him directly to the funeral home. They reconstructed his face as it was severely damaged in the accident. McGee says, “We know. We were at the scene of the accident.” DiNozzo asks how the body could have been removed from the casket, while checking out one of the floor models. The woman says she doesn’t know. McGee asks who has keys and she tells him she does, her brother who is a partner in the business and their mortician. DiNozzo knocks on the casket, which draws looks from McGee and the woman. DiNozzo asks if they have a security system. Making a weird face, the woman says they do and gets up to go get the tape. McGee gets a text from Ziva about Grady coming to look for him. DiNozzo says Gibbs must have forgotten. He wants McGee to come over and look at the casket with him. He tells McGee he has an idea and tells him to hop in the casket. DiNozzo tells him he’ll take a photo of McGee in the casket and send it to polygraph and tell them he’s dead. The woman returns and says she’d forgotten they’d had an alarm call on the morning of the 7th and as nothing was missing, they dismissed it as a faulty alarm. The alarm went off at 2:10am and the security company showed up at 2:30. McGee points out the 20 minute window was enough time for someone to make off with Arnett’s body.

In her lab, Abby walks in with Caf-Pow. Ducky remarks how the coffin looks expensive. Abby says it’s top of the line, expensive. She talks about her coffin and how it provides her hours of restful sleep. Abby finds no prints on the metal that was inside the coffin. She and Ducky find it strange that someone went through so much trouble for a body that would be viewed for only a few hours and then buried for eternity.

In the squadroom, Ziva points out that Burns was the one who insisted Arnett’s death wasn’t an accident. He knew that once NCIS exhumed the body, it would prove his death was an accident. However, if they exhumed Arnett’s body to run tests on it and found it missing, his blog would go wild. Tony says, “I like it. How do we prove it.” Gibbs asks Ziva if she thinks Burns stole the body, she says yes. McGee says “Boss, I got an idea. We need to get a look at Burns’ car in police impound.” Tony laughs and says, “Like Sportelli’s going to let us do that.”

Tony and McGee stalk the impound yard. They find Burns’ car. McGee says he’ll take care of the video surveillance cameras, it’s the dogs he’s worried about. Tony says with all the budget cuts, they can’t afford dogs. He tells McGee he has nothing to worry about, trust him. McGee pulls out a paintball gun and a concoction he made to simulate bird poop. He aims it at the camera and fires, hitting the camera lens. As Tony begins to climb the fence, McGee hesitates. He wants to reassurances there are no dogs. Tony tells him he doesn’t see or hear any, there are no dogs! They get over the fence and Tony breaks into Burns’ car. McGee sits upside down in the front seat of Burns’ car. He rigs up the laptop to Burns’ navigation system and downloads the data. Suddenly, he hears dogs barking and freaks out. Tony laughs and closes his cell phone; he played the sound of dogs barking on his phone. McGee tells him he’s juvenile as the download completes. Just then, Tony hears dogs barking and tries to warn McGee. McGee isn’t falling for this twice until he realizes Tony’s serious. He leaves his tools and runs out of the car. Tony’s running and yelling for him to go to high ground as the dogs chase them. McGee is running across the cars, while Tony is running on the ground. One of the dogs breaks off to chase Tony, who makes a comment how they are like “Turner and Hooch.” McGee goes to one end of a car and the dog is waiting. He retraces his steps, complaining he doesn’t have the right shoes for this. When he reaches the end of another car, the dog is there waiting for him as well. Tony reaches a truck and begins to climb the fence, he tells McGee to get over there. McGee gets down off the car and runs like a madman to where Tony is. He tosses the laptop to Tony and jumps into the truck. As he begins to climb the fence, the dog latches onto his pant leg. McGee is yelling for Tony to help when an officer comes up and yells “Freeze.” Tony says they almost made it and McGee tells him he sent the data to Abby.

In the lab, Abby has pulled up the arrest photos of McGee and DiNozzo. She’s fretting that Gibbs isn’t going to help them. Gibbs tells her they’ll be fine. Abby reviews the navigation data from Burns’ car and it shows he was parked outside the funeral home from 2:05am until 2:19am. Burns went to Seneca Creek Park after he left the morgue. Abby gets all excited when she sees DiNozzo and McGee walk in. Gibbs tells her the Director handled it as it’s way above his pay grade. On his way out, he tells the duo to not get comfortable as they have a search team to organize. In the squadroom Ziva looks around and sees the empty desks. She begins composing an email to her father but closes it when Abby walks up. She tells Ziva that they found Arnett’s body. Ziva replies halfheartedly, “Great.” Abby tells her she’d be doing cartwheels because her theory is correct. She wants Ziva to go out and celebrate with her, have dinner and listen to music. Ziva quietly tells Abby she can’t go, she has something to do. Abby leaves. Ziva looks around again then continues with her letter.

McGee shows up at the Polygraph and apologizes to Agent Grady for not being there the day before. He looks behind the desk at her legs. Grady clearly is flirting with him when she tells him she showed up early, just for him, the day before. How she takes the same train each morning. She says how her coworkers were worried about her when she didn’t turn back up after she went looking for him. She gets up and goes over to adjust the equipment, which causes McGee’s blood pressure to begin racing. She sits down and begins the exam. She asks him some work related questions, then asks him if he lives alone, and if he’s in a committed relationship. McGee hesitates and tells her no, then repeats that she takes the same train every morning. She tells him he doesn’t get to ask the questions. He rips off the equipment for the polygraph, goes to run out and tells her he has to reschedule.

Gibbs and Abby are in her lab. She tells him that the fibers found on Arnett’s body are consistent with the make and model of the carpet in Burns’ car. McGee comes in and says he needs to see the affects from Arnett. He has Abby pull up the information to see if Arnett took the train into work each morning. They discover he boarded the train each morning at 7:20am. They look at a potential route for Sutton and discover it’s possible the two men crossed paths and got to know each other on the train. They head out to go and see Sutton to get a look at his rail pass.

DiNozzo and McGee show up at Sutton’s sandwich shop. Sutton thinks DiNozzo is back for another sandwich and remarks he brought a friend. DiNozzo replies, “He’s not my friend. We need to see your rail pass.” They get him to confirm he took the train each morning but he wants to know why they need it. Tony quotes the movie “Strangers on a Train.” McGee goes over, turns the shop door sign to closed, then locks the door. They play good cop, bad cop and play out the scene to Sutton. Sutton and Arnett chatted on the train and came up with the scheme for the money. They agreed they would split the money down the middle. However, when Arnett died accidentally in a car accident, Sutton got to keep all the money until the SEC froze it. Burns made up the story of the insider training and set Sutton up. Sutton agreed to meet with Burns on the bridge and killed him to keep the information quiet.

Gibbs, Hanley and Sportelli show up at the squadroom. Gibbs makes a deal with Sportelli to drop the charges against McGee and DiNozzo for wrapping up the case for him. Sportelli agrees but says the deal is void if the case doesn’t hold up. Gibbs agrees. Hanley takes the prisoner, Sutton, downstairs and DiNozzo goes with her. He comments about her sweater as they walk by Ziva’s desk. McGee walks over to Gibbs and tells him he has to reschedule his polygraph. Gibbs tells him there was nothing wrong with the first one. McGee looks at him puzzled and Gibbs tells him apparently he made an impression on the examiner. When McGee still doesn’t get it, Gibbs asks, “Do you want me to draw you a map?” McGee says no, he’ll handler her.

Ziva approaches Gibbs desk. She tells him being a visitor here is wrong. She needs his signature on a piece of paper, she wants to be an NCIS Agent. He tells her he doesn’t know if it’s possible, she has to resign from Mossad first. She says she’s already done it, she’s sent her father an email. Gibbs asks what her father thinks and she says it doesn’t matter. Gibbs hesitates on signing the paper and looks up at Ziva….