What Lies Above is the 17th episode of NCIS Season 14 and the 323rd episode of the entire NCIS series.
Synopsis
McGee discovers his apartment has been torn apart by robbers trying to locate an item of great value hidden somewhere by the convicted criminal who previously owned the unit.
Congresswoman Flemming tries to persuade Director Vance to pursue a career in politics.
Prologue
Returning home at night, McGee suddenly trips in his doorway and spots an intruder in his bedroom. The man tries to shoot McGee but the agent is able to fire back and graze the man's arm as he escapes. A second intruder attempts to finish McGee but instead meets his end.
Cautiously approaching the downed man, McGee trips and hits his head on the coffee table. Gathering himself, he finds that several areas of his floors and walls have been damaged and ripped apart. Getting his phone, McGee makes a call to Gibbs.
Act One
At a restaurant, Vance is with Congresswoman Flemming who informs the director that his public image has soared since NCIS handled Kai Chen. She continues trying to get Vance to join her on the hill but a call from Gibbs alerts Vance to McGee's situation.
At the apartment, everyone is documenting the ransacked apartment. Torres gets a hit on the prints of the man McGee killed and finds that Louis Cole was a recent parole. With no stolen goods on him, the team guesses the second missing man might have taken something. McGee states that he is relieved Delilah was not present since she is in Dubai and is uncertain of telling her what's happened.
Torres tries to assure him that Delilah may not mind considering what took place before Tony had the apartment. Quinn questions what Torres means and learns of when the owner before Tony killed and dismembered three men. A history that McGee reveals he has not told Delilah yet and asks his co-workers to keep hidden; a request that earns mixed thoughts from Torres, Bishop, and Quinn.
Gibbs asks if there is any possible chance of the robbery and the triple homicide being connected but McGee is doubtful given that it's been fifteen years in between incidents. Suddenly, McGee notices the disturbed books and finds Delilah's hard drive "Rose Bud" is missing. With the possibility of D.O.D. files being on the drive, the team starts getting more motivated to find the second thief. Just then, Delilah calls that Quinn attributes as a woman's sixth sense when trouble is taking place.
Despite his team telling him to tell the truth and to find out if there are any sensitive files on the drive, McGee is unable to tell Delilah what happened.
Act Two
The next morning, Quinn finds Bishop at work before her as Gibbs requested more information on the triple homicide. Bishop relays details of the police report about the owner at the time, Paul Triff, being a licensed furrier who dismembered three known felons with an electric carving knife. Although Triff has claimed self-defense, he had been sentenced to three life terms at Maryland Correctional facility as his defense claim was not believed on top of cutting the bodies if he had been defending himself.
McGee then walks in trying to dispute any theories of a possible connection to Triff when he reveals Triff's furrier business has been a front for a smuggling ring and the three men Triff dismembered has been three of his furriers possibly working as smugglers. He also theorizes that Triff cut up the bodies as a way to sneak the bodies out of the building without detection.
When Torres questions him, McGee reveals that he did tell Delilah about the break-in but left out that he killed Cole since his love was so disturbed by the news of the break-in itself. He also admits that he got Delilah to stay away longer so he could fix the damages to the apartment before she gets back and notices.
Gibbs arrives and requests an update. They go over how Louis Cole was paroled two months earlier from Haynesville Correctional Center after a three year prison sentence for narcotics but had no burglaries on his file. With McGee still determined to get Rose Bud back so Delilah will never know it was taken, he and Gibbs head down to autopsy to talk with Ducky and Palmer.
However, the two doctors are aware of McGee keeping secrets and think it is not wise for him to do so. Abby voices how she thinks the apartment is unlucky but is relieved McGee is alright. She informs the men she got a hit from a fingerprint on a crowbar and it came back to a career burglar named Walter Shibberd. She also gives them Shibberd's cell phone number to track him down. Before they leave, she states that it is too late to tell Delilah about the apartment's history as she may not want to know at this point.
McGee and Torres arrive in an alley where Shibberd emerges from behind a dumpster. To Torres' excitement, Shibberd tries to flee but is cut off by Torres behind a fence. In Shibberd's backpack, McGee finds missing property and Rose Bud. Transporting Shibberd back to NCIS, the burglar admits that he is aware injured felons can be caught at the hospital which is why he avoided going to one after McGee shot him.
He adds that there was no specific reason for taking the items out of the apartment as he planned to sell them later but confesses that he had been hired by Cole to steal something specific although he wasn't sure what it was and the only clue and information was a hot tip from someone in prison. This news immediately catches everyone's attention and Abby is given the order to find what was worth stealing in the apartment.
Returning to the squad room, the team tries to find any connection between Triff and the robbery. McGee tries to state there is no connection but is soon proven wrong when Quinn and Bishop discover that Cole was a meal prep supervisor who trained others in other prisons, including Maryland Correctional and personally trained Triff.
Act Three
At Maryland Correctional, McGee is pacing the room nervously as he and Quinn wait for Paul Triff. The man soon arrives and the questioning begins. Triff tries to make it appear like he and Cole were not that close until he hears that Cole broke into the apartment, destroyed parts of the unit, and McGee is the current resident who killed Cole. Triff is distraught at hearing how the floors and walls were ruined but claims that there isn't anything of value to be taken.
McGee and Quinn don't believe anything he says and soon leave. Back at NCIS, Abby demonstrates a portable X-ray scanner that can be used to prevent further damage to McGee's apartment. However, the team is divided in tasks when Bishop gets a hit on a halfway house Louis Cole was staying in and she joins Gibbs in heading there.
At the halfway house, Gibbs and Bishop meet the manager who takes them to Cole's room but find little information that can help.
McGee after discovering a dead body under the floorboards of his apartment.
At McGee's apartment, Torres and Abby have scanned majority of the apartment with only under the bed left to check. When the others suspect McGee is hiding something, the senior agent quickly proves them wrong when he lifts the bed and reveals Delilah's comics and a compartment holding McGee's father's ashes as he has not had the time to spread them at Monterey. Abby does a quick scan of the floor and states something is hidden under the boards. Carefully, Abby and Torres take apart the floor and everyone is horrified to find an almost completely mummified man. McGee just then gets a call from Delilah, but he is too stunned to answer.
Act Four
Ducky and Palmer share in the team's surprise when they arrive to retrieve the body. In the dining room, McGee is on the phone with Delilah and is avoiding the discovery. When he steps into the kitchen, Bishop and Quinn bombard Torres about why he is now siding with McGee in hiding the body. Torres states that this latest discovery is different from knowing about the triple homicide and should be kept quiet.
In the morning, Gibbs checks in with Ducky and Palmer. The younger doctor gets a hit from the departed man's fingerprints and informs them the man is Logan Pruitt who had been reported missing fifteen years earlier. Palmer then notices something on the x-ray that indicates a foreign object in Pruitt's stomach. Ducky cuts into the body and retrieves a badly corroded key that was most likely swallowed before Pruitt died.
News of Pruitt's body being found reaches Vance who shares his sympathy to McGee about where he had been found. When Vance leaves to attend a lunch meeting, the team fill Torres in on Pruitt being a high-powered lobbyist for South African exports and was well known on Capital Hill until the famous Pretoria Heist occurred when he became an instant suspect in the theft of millions of dollars worth of diamonds that are still missing as he had chartered the plane the diamonds were on.
Abby excitedly rushes in and delivers news that the key Ducky pulled from Pruitt turned out to be a safety deposit key that now puts the team on the path to finding the missing diamonds. This same news is passed to Vance who then passes it onto Congresswoman Flemming who sees this as Vance's best shot of being accepted into the political ranks.
At Maryland Correctional, Triff is upset to see that Gibbs is accompanying McGee instead of Quinn. Gibbs gets right to informing Triff that Pruitt's body was found. Hearing the agent's theory about Pruitt knowing Triff was using his business to smuggle things and that the furrier sent the three men he killed to get the diamonds to Pruitt for safekeeping. However, Triff killed Pruitt from what they suspect was Triff planning to go back on his word and keep the diamonds for himself.
Triff claims that he is not a liar and admits that the original plan was to wait until the search for the diamonds died down, but Pruitt had been the one who wanted to go back on the deal and had even swallowed the deposit box key in front of Triff. The furrier states he had no choice but to kill Pruitt but didn't cut the key out since this took place weeks before he killed the other three and had hidden Pruit under the floor he was renovating and had finished by the time the other three tried to collect their money which led to their dismemberment.
Triff explains that he told Cole all of this since he felt someone should have the diamonds as Triff was never going to be released from prison. When he asks what will become of the diamonds, Triff is highly amused when he realizes the team hasn't found them. He immediately tries to seize an opportunity for a better cell in exchange for the information, but Gibbs ends things and the two agents leave.
Act Five
Later in Vance's office, the director is exclaiming how exhausting politics can be when Flemming enters. She right away expresses how upset she is that Triff's offer was not accepted considering it would only cost a slightly bigger cell with a view. Vance states that the offer will be accepted if needed but wants the team to try to locate the diamonds first.
When Gibbs leaves to meet with Abby, Vance right away scolds Flemming for trying to talk them into accepting Triff's offer as the team refuses to give into the demands of criminals to get what they need. Feeling insulted for the way Vance says she handles things, Flemming leaves.
In the lab, Abby shows Gibbs a clue that was found on Cole. A hair that was not his own dyed purple in color.
In an interrogation room, Margo admits that she did not say anything about her relationship with Cole because she did not want to get in trouble. Assured she is not in trouble, Margo confesses how she and Cole had been wanting to escape their troubled lives and reunite with Cole's daughter while starting a family of their own but felt that the diamonds were their only ticket to that life. Unaware of just how far Cole was willing to go, Margo is happy that the owner wasn't hurt and expresses doubt that the key was even real to begin with. Bishop admits there was a key and Margo reveals she knows where the diamonds are being kept. It is only through Gibbs gentle urging that she tells them about the Selbyville bank in Delaware.
At the bank, Quinn and Torres retrieve the deposit box. With Torres recording, Quinn opens the box and finds the missing diamonds.
At Maryland Correctional, McGee presents a picture to Triff of the diamonds and that his deal will not be going through. Letting Triff keep the photo, McGee asks if there is anything else left to discover in the apartment, but Triff gives a mixed answer that doesn't ease McGee's nerves.
After a scene of Vance and Flemming breaking up, the team learn from McGee that he has finally told Delilah the truth about the apartment but left out how he knew about the triple homicide the whole time. He returns to his apartment and is on high alert when he hears someone inside.
Thankfully, it turns out to be Gibbs ready to help repair the damage to the apartment.
Cast
Series Regulars
| Name | Portrayed by | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Leroy Jethro Gibbs | Mark Harmon | Special Agent in charge of the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Abigail Sciuto | Pauley Perrette | Chief Forensic Specialist for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Timothy McGee | Sean Murray | Senior Special Agent and second-in-command of the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Nicholas Torres | Wilmer Valderrama | Special Agent for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Alexandra Quinn | Jennifer Esposito | Special Agent for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Eleanor Bishop | Emily Wickersham | Probationary Agent for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| James Palmer | Brian Dietzen | Assistant Medical Examiner for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Leon Vance | Rocky Carroll | Director of NCIS. |
| Donald Mallard | David McCallum | Chief Medical Examiner for the NCIS Major Case Response Team. |
| Clayton Reeves | Duane Henry | Officer with MI6. Despite being credited, Henry does not appear in this episode. |
Recurring Cast
| Name | Portrayed by | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Jenna Flemming | Mary Stuart Masterson | Congresswoman. |
Other Cast
| Name | Portrayed by | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Triff | French Stewart | The man who owned McGee's apartment before Tony. |
| Margo Lenkovic | Gena Shaw | Manager of Louise Cole's halfway house and his secret girlfriend. |
| Walter Shibberd | Blake Berris | A career burglar who was hired to help break into McGee's apartment. |
| Peter Shaw | Christopher T. Wood | Congressman. |
| Louis Cole | Mickey Cassidy | Criminal. Uncredited role. |
Errors
- When McGee trips in his doorway, there is nothing present that he could trip over.
- When McGee hits the coffee table, he hits the left side of his head but the injury is shown on the right side.