'NCIS' Season 10, Episode 18: 'Seek' Recap

“NCIS”, season 10, Episode 18, “Seek”

Marine Sergeant Ted Lemere and his bomb-sniffing dog Dex save a poor boy who wanders into a minefield. Just as Lemere gets the boy to safety, he is shot down by a sniper.

In the office, a woman arrives looking for Gibbs. She introduces herself as Ruby Lemere, wife of the dead Marine Sergeant. She says that the military said he was killed from enemy fire, but a video he sent her indicates otherwise. The video says that he has to blow the whistle on some activities. She says that she doesn’t believe the military and that he was scared. Gibbs agrees to investigate.

In the morgue, Ducky determines the cause of death to be from a sniper shot, but he is not about to determine the distance. As he’s telling Gibbs about it, he finds a fragment of the bullet lodged in the soldier’s helmet.

In Abby’s lab, she determines that the bullet shard is from an American company, indicating it wasn’t the Taliban that didn’t kill Lemere.

In the office, the team learns that there was an eye witness, James Virgil, who witnessed the shooting. And that a few clips of ammo had gone missing from their station, which implies the Taliban could still be responsible for the shooting.

McGee and Ziva interview Virgil via teleconference and get his statement. He says he didn’t see the shooter, he just heard the shot. He says he was a big fan of Lemere and his dog Dex, and that the two of them saved countless lives. When McGee asks if Lemere had any enemies, Virgil gets angry. He says that they loved Lemere and Virgil even offered him a job, but he just wanted to go home.

Gibbs asks Ruby if Lemere had any trouble at work or on base, but she couldn’t think of anyone. She recalls a fight Lemere had 6 months prior with a man named Pit. Lemere was upset because he thought Pit was being too hard on Dex. Despite Ruby wanting to keep Dex, he’s still a young dog, so he has more tours to go on.

In the office, McGee gives Gibbs and Vance the rundown on Pit. His real name was Norman Pittorino, and he was a civilian contractor listed as a special consultant for the K-9 unit. He returned to the States a few days prior. McGee pulls up the incident report, which claims punches were thrown, and Pit and Lemere were ordered to stay away from each other. Gibbs sends them to bring him in.

As DiNozzo and McGee go to pick up Pit, he sends two guard dogs to chase them back into their cars.

Later, DiNozzo and McGee manage to get him into the interrogation room, and he says he thought they were loan sharks after him for money, thus his sending his dogs after them. Pit says that Lemere was overprotective of Dex, but that their fight didn’t mean anything. He says that he was the one who recommended Lemere for his outpost and thought he and Dex were top notch.

Ruby brings Dex to the office. She came to show Gibbs a necklace she received in the mail from Lemere from two weeks ago.

Ziva brings the necklace to Abby. Abby determines that the gold and jewels on the necklace are genuine, and the design seems to be Middle Eastern.

Gibbs gives Ruby and Dex a ride home and she thanks him for believing in her. When Ruby walks into her house, Dex starts growling. She hears someone in the house. Dex runs after him, but the man escapes out the window. Gibbs rushes in, but the man is gone. Ruby sees all her jewelry thrown about, but Gibbs says that’s not what he was after.

McGee and Abby find the necklace has the crest of a wealthy Afghani family who owned a jewelry shop. But the family fled the country for Pakistan. The necklace is worth around $9,000. Abby also analyzed the sleeve fragment that Gibbs got from Dex’s mouth after he bit the intruder. She found some DNA on it.

Gibbs tells Vance that he and McGee and Dex need to go to Afghanistan, since it’s the scene of the crime.

In Afghanistan, Lemere’s CO says that they likely got the man who killed Lemere, and says that Virgil’s contractors found 8 hostiles in the mountains, and one tries to escape, so they killed him. Gibbs asks if they know for sure, and they just assume they got him.

Gibbs doesn’t like the way things feel, and contemplates that a sniper would take out a dog before the dog handler. McGee arrives with Virgil and some of his contractors. They say that the Marines killed the suspects in the mountains. Then Gibbs asks them to show where Lemere was shot, and they do. He tells them that the shot didn’t come from the mountains, and that what they heard was the echo. The shot came from a building on base, which means the suspects they found aren’t suspects. The sniper is still out there.

In her lab, Abby finds dog hair on the sleeve fragment. She says it’s from a Doberman, which matches the breed that Pit has.

The team finds that it’s Pit’s lazy nephew that has worked a deal with people in Afghanistan to smuggle expensive items into Pit’s luggage, which he’d then bring back to the US, where his nephew would unload it. His nephew also broke into Ruby’s house looking for the necklace. However, he won’t give the name of who he was working with.

In Afghanistan, a new Corporal appears with Dex’s reassignment papers. He says that Virgil’s company is in a rush to sweep the city, so he needs Dex as soon as possible. Gibbs tells him no.

Gibbs, McGee, and Dex confront Virgil in the city and call him out on his actions. He was using Dex to sweep buildings for explosives, then he’d loot the buildings and sell the valuables. He tried to buy off Lemere, but he didn’t want anything to do with them. So Virgil used Pit’s nephew to try and steal the necklace back from Ruby to cover his tracks. Virgil’s buddy, a sniper trained marksman, killed Lemere.

Having been found out, the man draws his weapon, but Dex attacks him, and Gibbs shoots him down. In the commotion, Dex is shot.

After Lemere’s funeral, Gibbs talks to Ruby. She tells him that Lemere would be thrilled to know that Dex helped save the day. Gibbs tells her that, since Dex was shot, he’s been officially retired, so she can keep him.