Michael Arnett was a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. He was murdered to cover up an elaborate al-Qaeda operation in Washington, DC.
Biography[]
Pre-Series[]
Arnett was a second generation American. His grandparents had founded a business that developed into a chain of electronics stores. By 2007, the company was generating over $250,000,000 in revenue. Due to his heritage, Arnett spent at least one summer overseas. His linguistic skills— he was fluent in English and Arabic— made him a key asset to the American War on Terror.
Around 2006, Michael met a woman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While standing behind her, he explained the piece— as she later said, he "brought it to life." This woman, who he knew as Dana, would later become his wife, though the relationship was severely strained by late 2007 and the two had ultimately separated. Dana mused after Michael's death that their marriage was "doomed to fail" due to her ex-husband's dangerous assignments abroad. At the time of his death, Arnett was part of the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense For Combatting Terrorism.
NCIS Season 5[]
In October of 2007, NCIS agents were called when Arnett was spotted on the roof of a building in downtown Washington, DC, apparently preparing to jump. Agent Gibbs' team arrived on the scene and confronted Arnett, who was by that time on a narrow ledge eleven stories above the ground. Although Arnett had a revolver, Gibbs went out onto the ledge with the distraught officer and attempted to talk him down. They discussed briefly the details of Arnett's life— his faltering marriage, his sister and that he had "screwed up," although he did not elaborate on why.
After relinquishing his weapon, Arnett agreed to step off the ledge with Gibbs. When the younger man reached out to accept the agent's guidance to safety, however, a gunshot rang out. The analyst, groaning in pain, slipped & fell to his death.
It was later revealed through the course of the NCIS investigation that Michael's wife Dana was in fact a deep-cover Al-Qaeda operative named Najida Mamud who had been exploiting her spouse's access to classified information. In addition, she had replaced the cleaning solution for his contacts with timolol, a drug that mixed with his prescribed antidepressants to cause severe clinical depression; this was exacerbated by the death of one of Michael's contacts at the hands of Al-Qaeda, an atrocity for which he blamed himself.
Mamud hoped her husband would commit suicide, making it appear that he was the mole and allowing her to maintain her cover and potentially use the vast funds she would inherit from his family fortune to fund further terrorist efforts in the West. Ultimately Mamud was apprehended by NCIS agents at her hotel and her plot was foiled.