- A dead Marine's day job at a government think tank leads Gibbs and the team into the life of a 12-year-old prodigy who may be the killer's next target.
- Two young boys find the body of Marine LCpl. Lozada, without one hand; Gibbs and company investigate. Ducky says that the victim died elsewhere, and that the traumatic amputation took place postmortem. Lozada served on the guard detail for a high-level think tank, the Sattler Institute, which uses gifted, precocious kids to suggest solutions for military problems, using simpler, cleaner, purer, less linear, less bureaucratic ways of approaching problems. One student, Angela, had a close friendship with Lozada, who was a former member of a gang; a security tape at the institute reveals a clue. Tony and McGee find another connection, but they run into trouble. A maintenance worker at the institute finds the body of a woman. Ziva and Angela go to Ducky's house, but Angela disappears. Angela and the bad guy show up at Angela's house, as do Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva; right and justice trump. Then the gang gather at Ducky's house for a toast and a turkey dinner.—DocRushing
- A Marine lance corporal dies and loses a hand; he served on the guard detail for a high-level think tank, using gifted, precocious kids; Gibbs and company investigate. Another person dies, but the gang solve the mystery and nab the bad guy.—DocRushing
- Two kids playing in a cornfield stumble onto a scarecrow. It's bleeding. They remove the bag over the face and find it's actually a dead body, hung up.
At the office, Tony ribs McGee for taking the stairs and notices he's lost weight, 15 pounds McGee says. Duckie strolls through with invitations for the team to "Thanksgiving supper at Mallard Mansion." But everybody already has plans. McGee's eating with his sister, Tony's going to a poker tournament at a casino and Ziva is going to a neighbor's.
Gibbs calls everyone to the cornfield. The fresh corn prompts Duckie to suggest the have corn chowder as a first course. They reiterate their plans.
Duckie gets to work on Lance Corporal Lazada. He thinks the marine was killed somewhere else. They notice his hand was chopped off and "PC" was carved into his arm, a gang sign. He was in a gang before he joined up. They think whoever put him there wanted him found.
Back at the office, they learn Trevor Lazada had a spotless record and worked at a government think tank for six months. He and Tony head there.
The facility's coordinator Krista Dalton gives them a tour, where kids are playing video games, basketball and listening to iPods. They help with strategic military planning.
Lazada was a bodyguard for the kids. Krista says Lazada was close with a girl named Angela. She takes them to her and watch her breakdown a military rescue operation with Craig, the director of youth programs.
She guesses something happened to Lazada. Gibbs talks to her in her room, which overlooks a fountain. She gives him a cupcake and he admires her art. He leaves her his number. He gets a call.
Gibbs joins McGee at Lazada's crashed and abandoned car. There's a bullet in the car door. The car was on his route from work. The fuel line was cut. They find his cell phone with six incoming calls on it.
Tony talks to the caller in an interview room. Eddie Castillo, a member of the PCs who grew up with Trevor and was mad at him for leaving the gang. He cites an after hours club for rich kids as his alibi.
Ziva and McGee show Gibbs a hooded figure on security camera using Lazada's security access to get in the center after he was killed. The security system used a palm scan, which explains why his hand was chopped off. The person went to Angela's room, but didn't appear to take anything.
Back at the center in Angela's room, she says two of her collages are gone. Gibbs asks to borrow her MP3 player. He asks her again if she saw anything and she says no. She's going with them for protection.
Gibbs brings the MP3 to Abby in the lab. She's working on recreating her family cranberry sauce recipe. She's upset to hear he might not be going to Duckie's.
They watch the MP3 video, freezing it when it shows the collages on the wall. They're colorful but geometric, almost like bar codes. Abby gets to work figuring out what they are.
Down in the morgue, Gibbs tells Duckie he needs a psych evaluation on a 12 year old girl. And he assigns Gibbs dinner rolls to bring to dinner. He's noncommittal.
Darcy, a legal youth advocate, sits in the office to represent Angela. Gibbs takes her to see Duckie. She stops the elevator. She guesses he thinks she's hiding something about Trevor. She says she's not in danger, but won't say who is.
She sits down with Duckie and Darcy and opens by asking which kind of psych elevation he'll be doing. Later, Duckie tells Gibbs he thinks she is hiding something but will open up eventually.
Tony goes to talk to Eddie again. He's back to tell Tony why he was calling Trevor. Eddie says he has a 9 year old nephew that he wanted Trevor to talk to to keep him away from gang life. He says Trevor told him about a girl he was worried about and if he went to the cops her life would be in danger. Her name was Angela.
Abby used a biometric algorithm recognition program to decode the collage. Angela used 26 different colors to represent letters to write a poem. It's called "the Lady in a Fountain" and it's about death.
The second collage is a frequency jamming signal, every ship in the armed forces. Gibbs thinks someone might have been planning to sell it for her.
They look into her mom's bank records. Meanwhile, her mom has been calling repeatedly, wanting to see her. Over the last three months her mom has deposited $60,000.
McGee says the signals relate to a Navy operation and they appeared on the black market three months ago.
Interpol has one suspect. A defense contractor C-TEN Dynamics does work with the Naval think tank and their sales rep is Debra Leigh Dalton, Krista's younger sister. She flew to DC five days ago, but there's no trace of her.
The safe houses have been compromised by a computer glitch, so Gibbs suggests Angela stay with Duckie. He tells the team to cancel their holiday plans.
In the break room, Angela takes money off somebody at checkers. Gibbs suggest they play and if he wins she tells him the truth. He says they found the jamming signals. She says that's how she works out puzzles they give her.
Gibbs visits her mother, who says the money was Angela's. She says Angela wanted to go to the center. She shows him the check stubs, from C-TEN Dynamics. The payments were approved by Debra Leigh Dalton, but the mom doesn't know her. Gibbs tells her she can see her daughter soon. Gibbs gets a call.
They found Debra Leigh Dalton in a culvert outside the center. Angela's room had a good view of the courtyard, and the fountain in the middle.
Duckie and Ziva brine the turkey at his house and Angela wanders off to read books. Moments later they call for her but she doesn't answer. They look around and find the door open. She's gone.
Gibbs talks to Krista in interrogation. He confronts her with her overseas accounts. She says they sold battle scenario to game developers overseas. She says she and her sister took some of the money, but most went to the kids. Gibbs holds up a picture of her dead sister, breaking the news to her.
She says she has no idea who would killer her sister or Trevor. She says her sister was trying to break up with a guy she was scared of, but she doesn't know who.
Back in the office, they can't reach Angela's mother on the phone and they get a credit card hit -- on one of Duckie's cards. She bought a map of her hometown at a gas station. They think she wants them to come get her and worry the killer will be on the trail too.
In the car, Abby calls to say traces of oil based paints were found on both victims and that Debra was drowned in the fountain.
They pull up to Angela's house and see her outside, but she motions for them to stay put. Gibbs obeys.
Angela goes inside and sees her mom's phone off the hook and her mom at the kitchen table. She hugs her daughter and tells her to run. The director of youth programs, Craig, comes out of the shadows holding a gun. Angela isn't surprised to see him. She asks him why he killed that woman. She humiliated him. And he had to kill Trevor after Angela told him about it.
Craig hauls them both out of the house, but finds the team waiting for him with guns drawn. Gibbs puts his gun away, but Ziva keeps her aim. Craig says she'll miss.
Gibbs asks Angela what the probability is that she'll make it. Given the half moon and temperature and distance, she puts it at 97.6 percent. Craig holds the gun on her and Gibbs tells Ziva to take the shot. Craig drops.
Duckie serves Thanksgiving dinner and the gang's all there, except Gibbs. Duckie's about to carve when Gibbs comes in. They toast a happy Thanksgiving.
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