Continuing this week is the fourth series of the hit
drama following a team of special agents who

investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related
crimes. In this episode, an informant is shot dead
just as he is about to pass on crucial information
concerning an arms dealer, and Director Shepard
begins a relentless pursuit of his killer. But Gibbs
and the team wonder if a personal motivation
might be clouding her judgment.
In a dark street in a run-down part of town,
Director Shepard is meeting with a mysterious
informant. Just as the man is about to step into
her car, a vehicle charges out of nowhere and
guns him down. Once Gibbs and his team arrive
on the scene, Shepard finds she has some
explaining to do. “His name’s Troy Webster,” she
says of the victim. “He had information I needed.”
Shepard reveals that Webster had promised to
supply a file on the operations of La Grenouille – or
‘the Frog’ – an international arms dealer who narrowly escaped NCIS’s clutches (see the episode, ‘Blowback’). Webster was a money launderer working for La Grenouille who apparently had a change of heart and decided to betray his boss. The agents must now determine who was the actual target of the shooting – Webster or the NCIS director. Gibbs, meanwhile, berates Shepard for her recklessness in working alone. “I can take care of myself, Jethro,” she snaps.
The accuracy of the shots that killed Webster suggest he was indeed the intended target. “If the shooter had wanted the director dead, he would not have missed,” suggests Ducky. Shepard has no doubt that La Grenouille ordered the killing, but is furious when she hears that Abby has triggered a booby trap on Webster’s phone, destroying all
the evidence stored on it.
Fortunately, Abby has a chance to redeem herself when she finds blood on shards of glass from the killer’s vehicle, which was shot at by
Shepard. The blood most likely comes from either the killer or his driver, and it means that the director managed to wound one of the suspects.
Abby analyses the DNA and discovers that the person Shepard hit has a rare genetic defect, which affects only one person in the local area.
The agents swoop on the suspect’s house and find a wounded man lying in bed. Unfortunately, the man is already dead.
Whilst Shepard bemoans the fact she has inadvertently killed their “star witness”, Ducky expresses his misgivings about the case, arguing that his psychological profile of La Grenouille indicates he is a sophisticated personality who eschews murder. “He’s not the type to settle disputes with violence,” he says. When Shepard refuses to listen to Ducky, he wonders if some personal motive regarding La Grenouille is affecting her judgment. “You don’t need a degree in psychology to see that there is some history between those two,” he tells Gibbs.
Ducky is not alone in his doubts about the case, as Shepard and Gibbs discover when they meet with an undercover agent embedded in the arms
dealer’s gang. “I doubt La Grenouille had anything to do with your murder – it’s just not his style,” he says. He does, however, supply them with the name of the man La Grenouille would use if he were to order a hit: Andre Jones. The team traces Jones to a warehouse and storms inside to arrest him; but in the ensuing fight, the suspect is shot dead, and Shepard is left without a single lead.
Has La Grenouille triumphed once again?
Also this week, Tony is less than thrilled when his girlfriend, Jeanne, invites him to dinner to meet her mother. A nervous Tony faces a tough grilling from his potential mother-in-law, who remarks sourly that a “leopard doesn’t change its spots”. Can he convince her that his intentions are honourable?