Good morning, Phil.
Tom. How are you doing?
It's almost Friday.
Rough week to be selling insurance?
- You want me to tell you about it? - No, thank you, Tom.
Excuse me. There's a bakery around here, isn't there?
Yeah, it is two blocks up and make a left.
Thanks.
Oh, my God.
He just ran in the street. L...
Did anyone else see that?
Callen. Callen.
I couldn't stop.
- Oh, God. Oh, God. - Is he breathing?
Somebody call an ambulance!
Somebody call 911.
- Call 911. - Oh, God.
So last night I'm having a drink at the place Macy took me
after my first shootout.
I just wanted some alone time, but this guy walks over.
Attractive, well-dressed, bonus points for taking the lead.
- You know the drill. - All too well.
Guess what he used as his opener.
"Hi, my name is Mr. L-Have-No-Idea-What-I'm-In-For.
- Can I buy you a drink?" - See?
There wouldn't have been anything wrong with that.
But that's not what he said.
"Hey, there. Noticed your boots.
It takes a girl with a unique style to pull that off."
Unique style?
As in weird? As in ugly?
The boots were completely normal.
The boots don't matter.
He was running game on you.
What?
Game. The art of seduction.
He offered to buy you a drink, he'd be looking to get your approval.
- He turned the tables. - Putting me on the defensive.
And trying to earn his approval on a subconscious level.
It's game.
That stuff doesn't work on me.
At least you didn't give him your number.
Right?
Oh, boy.
Have you seen Callen today?
This guy buy you a drink?
- Told me he'd let me buy him a drink. - Game.
Kept checking his phone
- like he had better places to be. - Game.
Leaned in for a kiss 15 minutes after meeting me.
Definitely game.
At least you didn't let him.
- Right? - No.
Who do you think taught Mr. Beale to do that?
- What's up, Hetty? - Agent Callen's in trouble.
He enacted the Beauregard Protocol via text message.
His current cover's been blown.
- How did this happen? - That's not clear for the moment.
The only thing we know for certain
is that our operations have been breached.
As of this moment, we are not to make contact with him.
That means you, Mr. Hanna.
Callen's message to Hetty also contained a location in Venice.
Intersection of Horizon and Speedway.
That's two blocks from his rooming house.
This is traffic cam footage pulled from that intersection
approximately 15 minutes ago.
I'll call Deeks.
Make sure L.A.P.D. Knows we'll be handling this discreetly.
Eric, pull up everything you've got about this guy.
According to initial reports,
the dead man's name was Michael St. Paris.
No criminal record.
Employed by North Gate Elite Security.
They're a private investigation firm specialising in surveillance work.
He was running a tail. G caught him, so St. Paris bolted.
I'll call North Gate and see who hired him.
Callen left the crash scene almost immediately.
He must have stuck to blind spots and moved fast
because no cameras got him.
Also, his phone went dead right after he sent that alert to Hetty.
Off the grid.
Could this have anything to do with Agent Macy's murder in Annapolis?
No. It's unrelated.
What's Callen gonna do now?
What he does best:
Become a ghost.
So we can't find him?
Not until he's ready to be found.
Thank you.
- There's one. - Oh.
North Gate said an unidentified man hired them over the phone
to keep tabs of G's movements.
A single payment was sent as a cashier's cheque.
The firm didn't ask any questions.
Well, how long was the tail active?
G caught their man within minutes.
The firm was only tasked with surveillance. No background.
They don't know anything about NCIS or Callen's identity.
All they got from the man who hired them was Callen's name and address.
Hey, buddy.
Buddy. Weirdest thing just happened.
A guy just called the store.
Says he wants to talk to my most recent customer.
Which is you.
Yeah?
Mr. Callen.
Or do you prefer "special agent"?
Sorry, bud. Wrong guy.
The payphone on Ocean Walk and Sunset.
You got three minutes.
And, Mr. Callen? I know what the G stands for.
- That's for me. - All right, man.
Okay, I'm here. Who is it?
My name is Eugene Keelson.
I don't believe we've had the pleasure yet.
We haven't.
So who are you?
Well, someone who knows more than just your name and address.
I have answers.
And the name of the individual who hired me
to uncover every detail about you.
Sam, Kensi. I just got a message from Callen.
He's at a payphone at the corner of Ocean Walk and Sunset.
I'm initiating a trace now.
Okay, I'll bite.
What do you know?
A wealth of information that I think you'd be interested in.
What?
And I'm willing to share this information
in exchange for a small favour.
What makes you think you've found something I haven't?
Because I have access to things you don't even know exist.
So you haven't been asking the right questions.
This goes deeper than your name and your family.
You've been asking "who?"
When maybe you should start asking "why?"
How small is this favour?
Ugh. The caller disconnected. I was five seconds away
from triangulating his location.
He knew what we were doing as we were doing it.
Impressive.
Well, some people play checkers.
We both play chess, don't we?
You say you've got answers. Show me.
Reach underneath the payphone. You'll find an envelope. Open it.
Does that qualify as proof, Mr. Callen?
How did you get this?
You need to decide if you're gonna do this favour for me or not.
Tell me what you want me to do.
Do you see the flash drive?
Deliver it to some clients of mine. A group of Bulgarians.
The location is listed inside the envelope.
You're gonna give them the flash drive
in exchange for a cash payment.
- Who will the Bulgarians think I am? - Me.
- Will they expect an accent? - No. They think I'm American.
But be warned.
If you are unable to convince my clients
that you are indeed Eugene Keelson
then they will not hesitate to kill you.
Are you having second thoughts?
Well, I've been set up before. This is pretty much the way it feels.
If I can get to you,
how easy do you think it would be for me to get to the rest of your team?
NCIS has been compromised.
The only way you'll find out how badly is by doing as you are told.
Where do I bring the cash after I've done the deal?
I'll contact you.
You have 30 minutes to get it to the Bulgarians.
If you contact anyone else, our deal is off.
If you try to decrypt the drive, our deal is off.
- Keelson... - If you ever wanted to find out
the truth about yourself, now's your chance.
Do you understand?
- Yes. - And your outfit looks sharp,
but I'd lose the baseball cap if I were you, Mr. Callen.
Ugh. I was able to triangulate the source
to within one block of the payphone,
but whoever it was disconnected just in time.
Prepaid burn phone most likely.
Guy's probably already trashed it and now he's...
A server breach alert in the Ops Center?
Hold on. I gotta ID this and be sure.
Is it related to Callen's call?
No, totally separate.
Trojan horse virus. Conficker variant. F-type strain.
This is a serious attack.
I'm opening firewalls to block it from accessing any more of our system.
What's happening, Eric?
It's broken through the firewalls.
I'm losing control of the system.
Can you stop it?
It's starting to access our files.
I know. I can route it in from another segment.
Turn the system off.
Yeah, which one?
All of them. We're going dark.
Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially off-line.
We're blind.
And if G tries to check in with us?
He'll get a standardized pre-recorded service error message.
He's out in the cold.
Alone.
The number you have reached is not in service at this time.
You have reached a number that is not in service.
Please check the number and try your call again.
I'm Marinov.
Keelson.
My invitation said, uh, casual, but okay.
Right there. Beautiful.
I recently spoke to our mutual friend in Chechnya.
He says your source inside the FSB has proven quite valuable to the cause.
Yeah, well, I don't discuss friends or sources.
Works out better for everyone that way.
I appreciate a man who's all business.
I appreciate a good client.
You got some money for me or what?
Show me the flash drive first.
I want to verify the information.
Knock yourself out.
Satisfied?
Looks accurate to me.
Wonderful. So where's my money?
Yes. My money.
The problem is you already have it, Mr. Keelson.
- Excuse me? - Last year,
the guard shift changes you sold me for the airstrip in Chisinau?
- They were wrong. - Wrong?
Like hell they were wrong. That information was rock solid.
You screwed it up. That's your problem.
You think you can play me for a fool, Keelson?
All right, look. A little misunderstanding, okay?
Obviously something got lost in translation.
We're all good. Let's just, uh... We'll call it even.
Everyone walks away.
Sidewinder Rugged Appliance.
The most secure portable IPS, anti-virus,
URL, geo-location, encrypted application filtering in the world.
Let's find out how far inside the castle walls this Trojan horse rode.
I'm on it.
Agent Renko.
With, uh, Mr. Callen having gone Three Days of the Condor on us,
I think we need every able body we can muster.
Speaking of which, where's Sam?
Hmm. Where indeed.
As far as fail-safe rally points go, I've seen worse.
You said the same thing when we picked this out five years ago.
Hoped we'd never meet like this, G.
Thought we'd never get made?
A man can hope, can't he?
First Dom, then Macy, now this.
Something's going on, Sam.
Hetty's convinced they're mutually exclusive.
You once told me we ain't working hard enough
if nobody's trying to kill us.
I said that? Really?
- Make you feel better? - A little bit.
Who burned you?
A guy named Eugene Keelson.
Someone hired him to find out about me.
He did his job well.
What is it?
It's a list of every foster home I ever stayed at.
All 37 of them.
Some of those addresses aren't even in my NCIS file.
Why contact you?
He wanted me to meet with some Bulgarians,
pose as him, exchange a flash drive for a payoff.
I'm gonna guess they didn't play nice.
After they downloaded the file there was no money. Just guns.
I was an insurance policy in case things went south.
And you thought going it alone with a group of armed thugs
seemed like a good idea?
Keelson implied that NCIS had been compromised.
It's more than an implication.
Eric found a Trojan horse virus.
Had to take the Ops Center off-line.
This is as close as I've ever come to finding out who I really am.
That's what I'm worried about, G.
I took photos.
Keep your head down and stay out of sight, G.
As far as I can tell, the Trojan horse didn't get beyond Callen's files.
Keep looking.
Mr. Hanna. You know, I'm aware you speak several languages.
But I don't recall having used one you're unfamiliar with
when I instructed you to not make contact with Mr. Callen.
What makes you so sure that I con...?
It was a breach of protocol.
And one I understand.
So, what do we have?
The guy who burned Callen is named Eugene Keelson.
Callen made a drop for him with some Bulgarian heavies,
but it went all wrong.
This guy's got information about G's past.
Things that even NCIS doesn't know about.
That's what he handed over to the Bulgarians.
Oh, this is encrypted bigtime.
Without the mainframe, this is gonna take a while.
These are the photos he took before he made the drop.
We need to find everything we can on Mr. Keelson
before he destroys this unit.
All the Eugene Keelsons I found check out.
Same here.
This temporary server is Stone-Age compared to the Ops Center,
but I just got hits on the Bulgarians from Callen's camera.
Luka Dimitrov, Ilia Tagkov, Kosta Daimov.
That's a lot of "ov's."
All shot and killed this morning. Except for this one.
Ruman Marinov.
And all are former Bulgarian military
now involved with organised crime in the U.S.
They're using a restaurant downtown as a front.
How do you feel about goulash, Sam?
I thought goulash was Hungarian.
Actually, the dish is Eastern European.
It's got a lot of variations.
Essentially, it's a stew,
but what they all have in common is noodles.
Thanks for the tip, Martha Stewart.
Give me everything you have on the Bulgarians' connections
to other crime organisations ASAP.
We're closed.
On a Tuesday afternoon?
That's not a good sign.
I said we're closed.
Five employees, no customers.
This isn't gonna go down well when I write my Zagat review.
I work for Ramon Casador.
How is Ramon enjoying life in prison?
Well, it's not exactly his villa in Cartagena,
but I hear for the right price the food's pretty decent.
Considering his holdings, I'm sure he eats very well.
He has a small problem that's affecting his digestion.
Eugene Keelson.
Mr. Casador wants to know
what kind of man he might be getting involved with.
He's heard rumours you had dealings with him.
I'll tell Mr. Casador that you're busy
running your budding restaurant empire.
As far as information dealers go, Keelson's the best.
Anything you want, he can get it for you for a price.
Anything.
And the price is high.
Any loyalties?
Only to the highest bidder.
He burned you?
Let's just say he's going to be the victim
of an abrupt retirement in the very near future.
Mr. Casador will appreciate the info.
Okay, we're good.
Hello.
- Hetty. - Mr. Callen.
Is this your third cell phone of the day?
I'm keeping receipts.
Oh, good. I'll expect a detailed expense report.
For all of your necessities while on the road.
And I do mean necessities.
Well, I'll cancel my, uh, suite at the Chateau Marmont.
Did you find anything on the Bulgarians?
Hetty, I broke the encryption on the flash drive.
- Hetty? - Uh, I have to go.
I got burned and I can't be involved in the case.
I get it, Hetty.
I do too, Mr. Callen.
More than you realise.
What? What's the matter?
I have no idea if the drive's infected until I open it.
Well, if you don't we may not get our only clue in this case.
Live dangerously is my creed, Mr. Beale.
Go ahead. Go ahead and do it.
Harmless.
It's a single file containing a dossier and a travel itinerary.
Who's Andres Werner?
CEO of Haupt Eisen.
It's one of Germany's largest steel corporations.
Looks like he's in L.A. Completing a corporate merger.
Marinov's a major shareholder.
We're talking millions.
Millions that will drop like a rock if the merger goes through.
They're gonna hit him.
Callen gave Marinov the dossier.
He was coerced into doing so by Keelson.
But we can't allow this man to be killed as a result.
Werner's plane touches down at LAX in an hour.
Werner, get out of the car.
Federal agents! Put the weapons down!
- Put the weapons down! - Gonna be some nasty goulash.
Renko!
- You okay? - Yeah.
- Come on. You good? - I'm good. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm calling this in to the L.A.P.D.
- Mr. Hanna? - Decoy car worked.
Werner's safe. Marinov hit us with his team.
Every one of them is down except for the man himself.
Backup getaway car picked him up.
Have Kensi get out an APB.
She's on it.
Are any of Marinov's men in a condition to talk?
They're not in a condition to breathe.
We protected Werner, but we're back at square one with Keelson.
Which, unfortunately, is nowhere.
Yeah.
What happened to protocol?
It went out the proverbial damn window.
I've been thinking a great deal about your situation.
Nate has misgivings about your state of mind.
Well, he's gonna have to get in line.
During this crisis, he thought he should have a gun.
You didn't...?
Perish the thought.
Walk with me.
This, um, Eugene Keelson is a clever fellow.
It's rare for us when we have an adversary
who knows more about our operations than we do of him.
Despite Nate's misgivings, I think we need everyone's skills onboard.
Not sure that's such a good idea.
I told myself making the Bulgarian deal might help shed some light
on just how badly Keelson had compromised our team.
Is that why I did it?
Or was it just an excuse to find out about my past?
Oh, only you can answer that, Mr. Callen.
I can't.
Which is why Nate's right.
I should stay off this case.
Yes?
Not good news, Hetty. I've been tracking the damage
that Keelson's virus did to our server.
Callen's file isn't the only one it got into.
- Who else was compromised? - Everyone.
And everything.
Keelson's got information on every one of our cases.
I'm talking NCIS worldwide.
Thank you, Eric. I'll be back with you shortly.
I appreciate your noble return to reason, Mr. Callen.
But things have taken a turn.
The whole of NCIS has been compromised.
Like it or not, you are back in.
Callen, please tell me Hetty isn't gonna string me up for taking a call
from a burned special agent.
You're good, Eric.
You should see our new digs.
They are much more intimate,
albeit a tad shadowy, cavernous, and slightly spooky.
Eric.
I need you to bring our servers back online.
I want you to reactivate the computer virus that Keelson introduced
to our system.
- Are you serious? - Very.
You're asking me to commit technological malpractice.
Eric.
Here we go.
Virus is reactivated.
Our servers are exposed again.
Detecting a foreign code inside the firewall.
It's gotta be Keelson.
Open a new file.
Label it Keelson. Put it somewhere he'll find it.
Done.
All right, now include the following message:
"Call me. I wanna cut a deal."
Anything else?
Give him my active phone number.
We're set. Now can I ask why we're exposing ourselves to this guy?
We need to get to Keelson before he sells the NCIS case list
on the black market. This is the only way to lure him out.
Keelson likes money more than anything.
If we can offer him enough of it, he may just expose himself
long enough for us to take him down.
And what if Keelson would rather die than face prosecution for his crimes?
The information he has about your past
would likely disappear with him.
Are you ready to accept that, Mr. Callen?
This is Callen.
What you offering?
What? No small talk?
Why bother? You hate it.
Or did you forget that I know you better than you know yourself?
I can't let that case list get out into the open market.
Our offer is $10 million in untraceable U.S. Currency.
Your list would bring me more if I auctioned it myself.
The longer you hold onto it, the bigger risk you're taking. You know that.
This is a guaranteed payday.
Griffith Park Observatory.
Be there with the money. You got one hour.
- How will I find you? - I'll find you.
I can't authorise $10 million.
I wouldn't ask you to.
I'm in position. Kensi?
I've got eyes on Callen, but so far no one's making an approach.
Renko?
I got nothing. This guy Keelson could be anyone.
He'll show up. Eric?
Looks clear from here.
Wait a minute. There's a guy in sunglasses
approaching Callen from the south side of the area.
Eugene Keelson.
I guess some tips are legitimate after all, huh?
Everybody get down!
Get down! Get down! Get out of the way! Get down!
Sam, that's him! That's Keelson!
Eric, guy in the black jacket.
Turn over.
I'm running facial rec, but it's gonna take a while bef...
How'd we get a match that fast?
Sam, it's the driver who hit and killed the guy tailing Callen
this morning. Callen must have recognised him.
- Who is he? - No name. No address.
I think we're looking at the only two images of this guy that exist.
Keelson!
You exposed yourself by coming here.
That's checkers. Not chess.
Yeah, well, either you or Marinov was gonna walk away.
That left me with one final loose end to snip.
You won't get that chance.
You know, there's elements at play here
that are way bigger than you and me.
If you kill me, you'll never know the truth.
Who you really are.
Who hired me to find you.
Are you ready to live the rest of your life
wondering what that G stands for?
- Eric. - Yeah?
Fire it up.
I just don't understand. I'm saying...
Chess.
You play backgammon? Poker? It's game. They're all games.
- I'm telling you, I just... - Games.
Hey.
Have you ever heard of running game on someone?
No.
But that jacket you're wearing, takes a unique kind of girl to pull that off.
Glad to see everything back up and running.
You can surf the Internet for your, uh, funny cat videos again.
At least my web browsing doesn't require a full system purge
at the end of the day.
I'm composing a letter to Elizabeth Macy,
someone else looking for answers.
I'm sorry, Mr. Callen.
About what?
You didn't get the information you were hoping for.
Keelson found answers, I'll find them too.
Someone hired him.
He's still out there.
And how do you feel about that?
I will be able to answer that question eventually.
When?
After I track them down.
Hey, guys.
- What is it? - This case isn't over yet.
I just found a local address on Keelson.
- Where? - Downtown.
Could be a safe house.
I checked out its electronic signature.
Looks like this place is filled with some heavy-duty data servers.
And I think we've got the key.
Data means answers.