Continuing this evening is the fourth season of the hit drama series following a team of special agents
who investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related crimes. In tonight’s episode, the team is called to a small town where a marine intelligence officer has been shot dead. The local police have already investigated the crime and suspect that an Iraqi resident is responsible.

Gibbs and his agents are sent to a small town where Marine Lieutenant Rihama Shaheen has been found dead in a motel. Shaheen was born in Kuwait and had been serving military intelligence in Iraq until she returned six months ago. Gibbs is surprised to discover that the murder is three days old and the case has already been investigated by the local police. The sheriff says the prime suspect is Masoud Tariq, an Iraqi man who recently moved to the town and is now missing.

Determined to search for clues the sheriff may have missed, Gibbs inspects Tariq’s house, where he and Ziva find evidence of dismantled mobile phones and explosive liquids. “I think we just found ourselves a bomb factory,” Ziva says. Gibbs learns that the whole town was suspicious of Tariq, including his neighbour, who has photographs of the Iraqi meeting with two other Arab men outside his house. The picture looks even more damning when Tony discovers that Tariq is a former member of the Republican Guard and is living under an assumed name.

Gibbs and the local police leap into action when Masoud Tariq drives up to his house, sees the officers waiting for him, and makes to flee. The sheriff and his sidekick open fire despite Gibbs’s calls for a ceasefire, and Tariq is wounded in the shoulder. After being treated in hospital, the Iraqi explains that he has been deer hunting and only tried to escape because he was scared. He denies the bomb-making equipment is his and seems to win Gibb’s sympathy when he reveals his wife and daughter died in Iraq. “I’ve seen enough bombs,” he says. Tariq reveals that he worked as an informant for the US military in Iraq and was rewarded with a passport and a new life in the States.

Tariq’s innocence is confirmed when McGee discovers that the bomb-making equipment was planted after the house was first searched. “Someone’s setting him up, boss,” he tells Gibbs. It transpires that the sheriff’s deputy, Tyler, is the culprit. “I was just getting him before he got us,” he says.

However, Tariq still has to explain how he knew the murdered Shaheen. He tells Gibbs that Shaheen was the case officer who brought him to the US. She contacted him recently because she was investigating two other Iraqis who were granted US passports at the same time – the two men who were photographed with Tariq. He says the men visited him to find out what he had told the US military, but Tariq lied and said he had been passing on bad information.

Gibbs’s attention is now focused on these two unidentified Iraqis. It would seem that, unlike Tariq, they were of little use to the US military – so why were they rewarded with US passports? Shaheen was investigating the same mystery when she was killed. Did she get too close to the truth?

Also this week, Ziva is concerned by Tony’s “secretive” behaviour, especially when he does not answer her phone calls. And McGee finds himself acting as mentor to the local forensics tech, Ruby, who is doubtful of her abilities.

Friday 22nd February at 9:00pm on five