Plot

An overturned van in Washington, DC, contains body armor, which Abby shows to be faulty and fatal; Gibbs and company find the body of the driver, then the source of the bad gear and the path to the troops in the Middle East. Justice wins.

While investigating an overturned van in Washington, DC, the Metro PD finds cargo marked as the property of the USMC; Gibbs and company take over; the gang find crates of body armor, which Abby determines to be faulty and fatal. Ellie, the new probie, discovers what caused the wreck, then Tony interviews the two boys who did it; they give a clue, which points to the missing driver; Gibbs and the three musketeers find his body at his pad. Abby gives a hard time to an official of the manufacturer of the faulty armor; Gibbs and McGee speak with a discharged Marine with experience with faulty armor; a group of concerned mothers shows up, and they start asking questions. Tony and Ellie interrupt a rendezvous, then Gibbs and Ellie get some answers. McGeek asks a seminal question, which leads to two more meetings, one of which results in a confrontation and a demonstration of the faulty armor. McGee introduces someone to Delilah, who gives McGee a dare.—DocRushing

Two best friends named Chris tag in an abandoned warehouse. One gets annoyed with the other and tosses his backpack, but the target sidesteps and it flies out a window to the ground below. There's a screech of tires. They look out and see a van crashed.

Ellie practices her hand-to-hand combat skills in a gym for her certification. McGee and Tony come to take her to the body of the week.

At the scene, they find guns and Marine cases. There's a mattress and latrine buckets inside, the driver lived in his van. There's blue paint splattered on the windshield.

Tony finds the Chris's backpack with spray paint.

The Marine crates don't contain guns -- they have armored vests, but they're missing their National Stock Numbers, meaning they never made it to the Marines.

In the lab, Abby tested the vests and found the ceramic plates in them shatter on impact and can be lethal.

Later, Tony gets off the phone with body armor manufacturers who are sending representatives.

McGee gets off the phone with Delilah, who wants to come by and thank them for the takedown of Benham Parsa, but she's struggling with adjusting to being seen in the wheelchair she's now in. "Just don't not avoid not making her feel self-conscious about it," Tony offers.

Gibbs arrives and calls for a rundown on the driver. They tracked down a Chris from his homework at the scene.

Tony talks to the Chrises. One of them wants to be arrested for scholarship purposes. "We're out of control teens, sir. We need the state to intervene," Chris says. Tony disappoints them by telling them they're not going to jail, but he offers to put them in a holding cell if they help ID the driver.

He was a big guy in a fairgrounds gunshow t-shirt that was too small.

Tony and Ellie head to the gun show. She's adjusting to always wearing her gun. She remembers the stress of the gun training exercise and Tony guesses that she shot the mother holding the baby. "I thought it was a gun wrapped in a towel, like in 'Godfather Part 2,'" she defends. She begs him not to tell McGee or Gibbs.

Fay Gussman, the gun show organizer finds them. She recognizes the picture of the van as belonging to someone who always tries to sell guns at her show without a permit. She leaves to find his name and address.

Tony and Ellie see a woman named Karen selling care packages to send to troops overseas, including non-standard issue armored vests. She assures them hers are military grade. Tony checks, the vest isn't from the batch they're following.

Fay brings the van driver's name and address. The team heads to his apartment and finds him shot dead on the floor.

With Duckie and Palmer on the scene, Ellie is very helpful to Tony to get him to keep her secret. Palmer is acting odd but finally shares that their birth mother signed the adoption papers.

In Abby's lab, she stares down Benson Honeycutt, a rep from a vest making company, Dearborn Dynamics Systems, trying to make him feel guilty. He assures her the faulty vests were set to be destroyed and never made it to the market or the military. Gibbs joins them and wants to know how they ended up with the vests. Benson doesn't have a good explanation.

Abby finds evidence of another complaint with their vests that resulted in sergeant named Fred Linn becoming paralyzed.

Gibbs and McGee go to the field where Linn said he'd meet them. They look up and see him floating down in a tandem parachute jump. Once he's on the ground and in is chair, he explains that he started a skydiving company. He's sanguine about becoming paralyzed, explaining that he was shot in the back four times in Kabul and doesn't blame his vest, even though it was a shard from the vest that hit his spine. When Gibbs asks, she says it was a gift from his mother but he's not going to ask where she got it.

McGee asks him how long it took him to get used to being paralyzed. Linn explains you don't, you just move on.

In the morgue, Palmer compares Linn's wounds to the ballistic dummy they used the faulty vest on and finds they're very similar. When Abby realizes she's chewing on a bubblegum cigar Palmer bought to celebrate the adoption her superstition kicks into high gear. Palmer knocks on a tongue depressor to reverse it.

In the office, Mallory Linn, Fred's mom, arrives angry. She's alarmed to learn she sent her son faulty body armor and demands answers. She doesn't even remember sending it. She brought a dozen moms with her, all of whom sent body armor to their children.

Delilah calls McGee -- she's in the office. McGee arrives to find Delilah and Tony naming all the disabled movie characters they can think of (Professor X, the old lady from 'Titantic'). McGee is appalled until Delilah says she started it. When the whole team is there, she thanks them for taking out the evil coward bastard Parsa. "You know, that was actually the name on the death certificate," Tony says.

Ellie announces a break in the case. She found that Mallory wrote a check to Karen with Home in Your Hands foundation -- the care package from the gun show -- which is why Mallory doesn't remember sending the vest. Three of the other waiting mothers did as well. They're going to have to coordinate with the other branches of the military. Gibbs suggests Delilah go up to MTAC to smooth things out since she's with the Department of Defense.

In the elevator up, Delilah and McGee do an awkward dance with her chair, with McGee not knowing how or where to stand.

Tony and Ellie stake out the charity woman Karen. They watch as a pick-up pulls up next to her and the driver hands something over then pulls away. Tony and Ellie stop the cars.

Back in interrogation, they reveal that the bag Karen picked up were just tampons. She says the man is a dad who was sending his daughter her favorite brand; Karen was on her way to the post office.

Gibbs shows her a photo of the shattered armor and they accuse her of selling faulty armor. She says she had no idea they were faulty. She admits she bought them from the dead van driver. She didn't ask questions because it saved money so she could send more.

They want all her records.

In MTAC, McGee and Delilah update Gibbs. A bulletin has been sent to all the services about the faulty vests but there's a recon unit outside of communication range and two of the members received the vests.

In the office, McGee finds that Dearborn made money recycling their defective vests when it should have cost a lot. Benson Honeycutt signed the forms.

In interrogation, Honeycutt insists there's nothing wrong with good business. When Gibbs comes in doing his Gibbs bluster, Honeycutt explains the recycling company was going to use the ceramic for other things which is why they made money. He says if the recycling company isn't destroying the vests it isn't his problem. McGee comes in with phone records showing multiple calls between Fay and Benson -- she owns the recycling plant. Benson confesses that Fay called him to say she wanted to tie up loose ends, but he didn't know that meant murder.

He insists he didn't know the vests wouldn't be destroyed. Gibbs tells him to call Fay and set up a meeting.

Fay waits outside the fairgrounds but when NCIS races up, she runs into her mobile home. Moments later, she opens fire on them with a semi-automatic weapon. They return fire and Ellie is hit.

After a few more rounds, Fay opens the trailer door. She's wearing one of the faulty vests, and is hit. She's dead. Ellie has bruised ribs, but is OK.

Back at the office, McGee asks permission to drive Delilah home. He asks Gibbs if he could make a stop and Gibbs tells him to take the time he needs.

McGee takes Delilah to Linn's landing site. McGee checks his watch then see Linn come floating down from the sky and land on the landing pad next to his wheelchair. He thought Delilah might want to talk to Linn since they're going through some of the same things.

She thanks him, but suggests as long as they're there, they should try sky diving, too.