NCIS Los Angeles s02e08 Episode Script
Bounty
- You got a pen? - Yeah.
You know, if you really wanna say you care, you should ditch the card and buy him a pint of bourbon for the big day.
- Hey.
- Huh? All right, kitty cat, behind the back, standing on one leg, double tap, center mass.
Wow.
Can I see your gun? My gun? What for? It's a Beretta 92FS, right? L.
A.
P.
D.
Issue? Actually, yeah.
NCIS agents carry SIGs.
I just wanna see how yours fires.
I'm sorry, you wanna fire my gun? - You're acting weird.
- I just don't like people firing my gun.
- Okay, let me just hold it then.
- I don't like people holding my gun.
- You can fire mine.
- I don't want to fire your gun.
I don't want anything to do with your gun, and it's not personal.
- Feels personal.
- It's just a guy thing.
- A guy thing? - A gun thing.
I said it's a gun thing.
Funny.
You said a guy thing.
Oh, buddy.
Hell hath no fury like Kensi Marie Blye.
The groin? Really? Why does one practice shooting someone in the groin? Rough night? - I'm meditating.
- Mm-hm.
Looks like you're sleeping.
It's called meditation.
Is it normal to snore when you're meditating? - Stop staring at me.
- I'm not staring.
I can feel it, G.
I honestly just don't understand what the big deal is.
You don't trust me.
I'd say that's a big deal, wouldn't you? I have a thing about my gun.
At this point in our relationship, after all that we've done - Zip I'm sorry.
- What? - Did you just say relationship? - No, I said partnership, okay? - You're very annoying.
- Maybe I just need a little bit of space.
- You're on my desk.
- Shh.
Listen, here.
Both of you.
You don't trust each other.
All the fist-bumping and saying you got each others' back doesn't mean squat unless there's trust.
So build it soon, or risk the consequences.
You got it? And for the record, I was meditating.
Oh.
Is that what meditation sounds like? Because I call that yelling.
New case on deck.
Rise and shine.
Meditation is over.
Thomas Booth is an Army sergeant turned Delta Force operator who, until recently, worked closely with the Marines in Afghanistan.
Joint task force ops.
Highly classified missions.
Last night, his car was discovered in a parking garage after closing time.
Booth had placed a wireless video cam on his dashboard.
Knew the meeting could've gone wrong.
Booth put in for retirement He was kidnapped on the exact day he became a civilian.
What was Booth working on? Well, most of Booth's file was redacted.
He was a member of Task Force 232, a unit responsible for hunting down high-value targets in Afghanistan.
Terrorist leaders with prices on their heads.
Bounties of up to 25 million that go to informants who give key tips to units like Booth's.
Bring them in dead or alive.
Some of the deadliest guys around.
So Booth had access to information that was not only classified, but also worth millions of dollars.
Hmm.
Task Force 232 is based at Camp Pendleton, but I've been told the squad's at the team leader's house today for a barbecue.
A half an hour after he was kidnapped, six cars left the garage.
Now, the first five checked out, but the sixth was reported stolen by L.
A.
P.
D.
Just the night before.
Police just found it.
It's a silver Audi A4.
Empty, but it's a start.
You two check out the car.
Sam and I will handle Booth's unit.
We're off to a barbecue.
What would you do with $25 million in reward money? You mean if I wasn't a government employee and I could legally accept it? Ah, probably buy a first-class ticket to somewhere real quiet.
Really quiet.
Someplace you don't take a partner.
You? I would hire the best private investigator money can buy.
I'd have him track down my partner, and when I found him You'd follow me? I'd send him Hetty, in an overnight package, with a big bow.
Heh.
I wouldn't sign for her.
NCIS, right? These are the men of Task Force 232.
Gotta go native.
Clean-cut Marines stand out behind the lines in Afghanistan.
- You heard about Booth? - He got snatched.
You don't seem too upset about it.
Maybe he had it coming.
Not a very friendly bunch.
Seems angry.
Maybe he should take up meditation.
What was Booth's skill set? Why was he assigned to your unit? Languages.
Booth is fluent in Pashto.
Not a lot of guys in the military are.
When he retired early, that left us in the lurch.
Can't communicate with the locals, makes taking down our targets harder.
Why did he retire early? He wanted to be hired by a private contractor as a translator.
They pay a premium for guys with his language skills.
In a lot of ways, we're closer with Booth than we are with our own families.
But when he walked away from our unit with targets still on the ground, he walked away from us.
For money.
Affirmative 27.
Officer, NCIS.
I'm Special Agent Kensi Blye.
What do we have here? We found some fingerprints that didn't match up to our databases.
Gentlemen, how you doing? I need to talk to you guys for a second.
You guys see anything I should know about? Nope.
Sure about that? Well, last night we saw some guys around the corner in the empty lot with flashlights.
- What did they look like? - It was too dark to see, which means they didn't see us.
How many were there? Five went out there and four came back.
That's all we saw.
You can keep giving me money if you want to, but that's all I know.
Hey.
Car's a dead end for now.
Come on.
Do you smell that? That's a hell of a retirement party.
Did Booth have any enemies? Yeah, as a matter of fact, there was someone who hated Booth pretty bad.
His son Brandon.
Marker lines all over his skin correspond to non-lethal wound points.
Lines are targets for these stab wounds.
I mean, just drawing them on must have been psychological torture.
You want to inflict the worst pain possible without killing a guy? This would be the way.
Gunshot to the head.
Mercy kill.
He was interrogated.
Booth had information.
Once he gave it up, kidnappers capped him and dumped the body.
No excessive mutilation indicating a grudge, like a gunshot wound to the groin, for instance.
Judging by the wounds, Booth must have been tortured for hours before he was killed.
He knew something.
But what? Eric, we're outside Brandon Booth's residence right now.
What did you dig up on him? Eighteen years old, only child of Thomas and Yasmin Booth.
Parents divorced when he was 12.
Brandon lived with his mom.
She died two years ago, breast cancer.
Thomas Booth was deployed in a classified location at the time.
Brandon's got a record.
Vandalism, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest.
My Freud's a little rusty, but I don't think we're looking at a kid capable of torture and murder.
Thanks.
You just name-dropped Freud.
Well, dead father, rebellious son who was close with the mother.
Had to address the Oedipus in the room.
Uh, Brandon's not home.
I'm his neighbor, also his landlady.
I knew his mom.
Cut him a break on his rent.
He's had a rough time of it.
We just wanna ask him a few questions.
He's at the diner down the street.
You probably already know this, but they found his dad dead in an empty lot this morning.
We heard they had issues.
They haven't spoken in the past two years, since his mom died.
- What kind of a selfish bastard? - Can you let us in? Last time I checked, this was a nation that protected civil rights.
Let's see your search warrant.
Better make that call, G.
Remember that information I said we weren't gonna need? We need it.
Ma'am, we're federal agents investigating a homicide.
Hundred dollars gets you in.
What happened to civil rights? Does under-reporting rental income for six years count as a civil right? I didn't hear that one mentioned in the "I Have a Dream" speech.
- Thank you.
- Mm-hm.
G, come check this out.
Excuse me.
Storage area.
Huh.
Brandon's a kickboxer.
It's a loose board.
Would you look at that? Look at that money.
And I've been cutting him a break on his rent all this time? Brandon? His dad's.
This itinerary's for Thomas Booth.
Thought you said they hadn't seen each other in a couple years.
Either Booth is using his kid's house as a stash spot without his knowledge, or father and son are a lot closer than anyone thought.
This itinerary has a flight from LAX to Peshawar Airport in Pakistan.
Oh, I've been to Pakistan.
But that food kept me in the bathroom for a week.
Say, I sure wouldn't want anyone to accuse Hey, lock up when you leave.
Departure date? Today.
Yeah, no, no, I got it.
Okay, thanks.
Hey.
See the guy in the suit? Tailored one that costs more than we make in a year? Yep.
He's going.
- Go, go, go.
- Hey, hey.
Take the car, cut him off.
What, so now I'm your sidekick? Hold it.
Is this how Sam and Callen do it? One of them would crack a funny one-liner right about now.
Get up.
- I'm waiting.
- You need to listen to me.
Thank you, Deeks.
You're making a mistake.
Check inside my jacket pocket.
You'll find credentials.
Put down the gun.
What? Why? Diplomatic immunity.
Your name is Jafar Khan? Yes, and I'm here voluntarily.
Although I wouldn't mind seeing you work a pair of handcuffs.
Ah, American girls, so health conscious.
Why did you flee the scene? I'm an operative for Inter-Services Intelligence.
My superiors would prefer I not be photographed.
What brings you to Los Angeles? I'm an asset.
United States Joint Special Operations Command.
And I have a specialty: High-value targets.
Bounties of 1 million and up.
Because you're not an employee of the U.
S.
Government, you've pocketed a fortune in reward money.
I can think of worse ways to make a living, Special Agent Blye.
Who killed Thomas Booth? I don't know.
Prove it.
Voluntarily.
- Pick up, 14.
- Hi.
How was everything? As usual, it was great.
I'm thinking about some dessert.
There you go.
Brandon Booth? What do you want? NCIS.
Want to ask you some questions about your father.
My father? Okay, how about this? Lifelong soldier.
Delta Force hard-ass.
Chest full of medals.
Total stranger.
You guys know more about him than I do.
Mom claimed he was some kind of hero.
I knew him as the most selfish person I ever met.
What do you mean, selfish? He was always requesting deployments.
Always wanted to go back.
Why? The man had skills, Brandon.
He made sacrifices his country needed.
I spent my 16th birthday watching my mother die in a hospital bed.
Dad was off doing things he couldn't talk about in places he couldn't mention.
Maybe we needed him, too.
Last week was my 18th birthday.
Spent it waiting for him to call.
And I'm not sure what pisses me off more.
That he didn't call, or that I was dumb enough to think that he might.
Are you hungry? Does ISI know you're working with JSOC? Of course.
If I didn't tell them, they'd find out.
They're not the CIA, but This can't be good.
You shouldn't have pulled your weapon.
I hope you're not accusing me of being a harbinger of doom, Mr.
Deeks.
What? No.
A harbinger of doom? Of course not.
You know, this guy isn't just an informant for Joint Special Operations Command.
He's a bloody folk hero.
He's put his life at risk to help our cause.
If terrorists knew that he was passing sensitive information on to Americans, both Khan and his family would meet brutal ends.
Go ahead, Mr.
Beale.
I'm messaging you Khan's dossier now, Hetty.
It's a variety of files and images from Joint Special Operations Command.
You should be getting them now.
Getting them, Eric.
That's big game.
Khan sends his tips on to JSOC.
They vet the intel, and when the target's location is confirmed, they send in Task Force 232 to eliminate them.
The man has more than Wow.
Hey, Eric, do we have any information on Khan's personal life? Yeah.
Here it is.
You getting that? Got it.
Booth's former unit, 232.
Booth and Khan were buddies.
Booth filed for retirement, but kept getting calls from his local sources in Afghanistan.
He said he had a tip.
A big one.
Price on the target's head was $10 million.
He wanted to discuss it.
But he never showed up.
I got concerned and began monitoring police scanner reports.
When L.
A.
P.
D.
Discovered a body matching Booth's description, I had to see for myself.
Booth was a private citizen.
He was gonna go back there, take out the target himself and get rich.
Thomas Booth and I trusted each other.
We were family.
- Family? - Yes.
He was my brother-in-law.
That's all Joint Special Operations Command gave you on Khan? I'm betting more intel on him exists.
The problem is, he's too valuable an asset for them to reveal as much as we'd like.
Mm, government agencies are territorial.
If he's receiving special treatment from one, it might put him on the wrong side of another.
But even if Khan does have dirty laundry that JSOC hasn't told us about, how are you gonna find out who has it? Khan's a cloak-and-dagger guy.
He hasn't been hanging out with the Department of Agriculture.
Okay.
What are you thinking, Nell? We found something in your house.
A bag of things that belonged to your father.
You went through my stuff? Can we get a check, like, right now? Did you know he was keeping things? Seems strange, given what you just told us about your relationship with him.
Doesn't make any sense.
Last time I saw him was two years ago.
Why was he stashing things on your property? - I don't know.
- Brandon.
I know what it's like to not wanna talk about your family, especially to guys like us.
But your dad was headed back to the Middle East.
If he came to you for anything at all, you need to tell us.
Look, I didn't know him at all.
G.
It's a little warm for an overcoat.
Gun.
- You good? - Yeah.
Where's the kid? Gone.
Booth married my sister Yasmin almost 20 years ago.
I had just started at ISI.
He was a young Army recruit.
We became close friends.
A spy and a soldier.
Different sides of the same coin.
- Like brothers.
- Booth.
He brought you into JSOC.
The high-value targets, the bounties.
What was the tip he wanted to discuss? He didn't get into specifics over the phone.
Too risky.
He said it involved the location of the Taliban's master bomb-maker, Kasi Shariff.
In 48 hours, the location goes cold, and their bomb-maker will get away.
I'm reviewing traffic cams around the diner and working on tracing Brandon Booth's cell phone.
Keep looking.
He's in danger.
What do we have on the shooters? Afghani citizens with ties to the Taliban.
Their fingerprints match the ones on the car L.
A.
P.
D.
Found.
Taliban? They're a long way from home.
They kidnapped Booth.
They were protecting what he was gonna go after Or they were going after the target, too, and they wanted what he knew.
One of the shooters was carrying a burn phone.
Series of text messages with addresses.
The garage where Booth was snatched, the location where his body was dumped, Brandon Booth's house.
Someone was giving them orders.
Were you able to dig anything else up on the Pakistani spy, Jafar Khan? No.
But I'm still looking.
Yo.
Hold on.
Guys, it's Deeks.
Go ahead.
Booth was killed because he knew the whereabouts of the Taliban's master bomb-maker.
The guy has a $10 million bounty on his head.
One of the top five most wanted men in the world, Kasi Shariff.
This man was behind the police academy bombing last month in Kabul, which killed 189 people.
Weekends, he teaches teenagers how to rig a dead dog so full of thermite that it takes out an Abrams tank.
And whoever is running the shooters now has Booth's intel as well.
Shooters went after Brandon Booth because they think he knows about it.
Is it possible Brandon knows something he's not telling us? The clock is ticking, because according to Khan, this intel is only good for another 48 hours.
Just because Booth did it for the money doesn't mean he wasn't doing the right thing.
If the target gets away, he died for nothing.
Our work is cut out for us, gentlemen.
Locate Booth's killer, and he'll give us the intel we need to take out this Taliban bomber.
Lose him, and those 189 blast victims in Kabul won't be his last.
Send a text.
Whoever's giving orders may not know their guys are dead.
We may get something.
We go in undercover, make contact, get answers.
It's an address in Thai Town.
- How's your Pashto, Sam? - It's better than yours.
Find Brandon Booth.
You can meditate on the way over.
I'll reflect on Zen and the art of locking your ass in the trunk.
I'll work my contacts.
If anything comes up, you'll be my first call.
Sounds good.
- I was talking to Agent Blye.
- Yeah.
What? You slipped James Bond your number? For case purposes only.
How long did it take for Callen and Sam to trust each other? Uh, New Year's Day 2007.
What happened? Oh, uh, they'd only been partners for a month, and it wasn't going well.
No chemistry at all.
Mr.
Callen went undercover to meet the Armenian mob.
Mr.
Hanna stayed outside as backup, but saw that his new partner was badly outnumbered.
He moved in a little closer, but was caught by a sentry.
Sam was dragged before Callen.
The mob boss handed Callen a gun, and demanded that he prove his loyalty, or they'd both be killed on the spot.
Callen pointed the gun at Sam's head and pulled the trigger.
The gun dry-fired.
It was empty.
They went on to solve the case.
Afterwards, Mr.
Callen said he knew the gun wasn't loaded because of its weight.
And Sam believed him? Why else would Mr.
Callen pull the trigger? That's a pretty big leap of faith.
That's trust.
Location is the condemned gym across the street.
I'll tell them we're willing to cut a deal.
Betray NCIS for a payday.
Gain their trust.
They'll take me to who's at the top of the food chain.
Move fast, because time's running out on Booth's intel.
We find his killer, we still got a shot at this Taliban bomb-maker.
Callen, we got a lock on Brandon Booth's cell phone.
Looks like he's on foot just off La Brea and Fountain.
Kensi, Deeks, keep an eye on Brandon.
You sure he's not involved? He's Booth's son.
Jafar Khan is his uncle.
Right now, we can't be sure of anything.
Okay.
Stop right there.
Don't look at me.
Face forward.
You're going to be searched and disarmed.
I'm a federal agent assigned to Thomas Booth's murder.
I know the tip he was sitting on.
Meet my asking price, I won't turn it over to my superiors.
I'm here to cut a deal.
My men have been captured.
Killed.
By me.
How do you know about Booth's intel? Hidden in Booth's son's house.
The exact location of the Taliban's bomb-maker.
- You're bluffing.
- I fail-safed the information.
If I don't place a call once every hour, it goes straight to the Joint Special Operations Command.
Pay me off and the tip stays a secret.
I'm only negotiating with the guy running the show.
And don't tell me it's you.
How do I know you're telling the truth? What are you willing to offer me? I have a partner.
- He knows what you know? - Yes.
I hand him over to you.
I killed your men, you do what you want with him.
Betrayal comes easy to you.
It's the cost of doing business.
What the hell are you doing? Shut up.
You guys make whatever calls you need to make.
You have one minute to come to a decision.
He's collateral damage as far as I'm concerned.
I won't need a minute.
I thought you were bluffing me then and I think you're bluffing me now.
Wait a minute.
I came here to show you I meant business.
Now put down the guns and let's make a deal.
Nice plan.
Hope it was worth it.
I can get them to change their minds in less than 10 seconds.
Right, you'll get what you deserve, you greedy - That's nine.
- Nine what? Times we've done the "corrupt agent betrays his partner" routine.
I didn't know you were keeping count.
You'd keep track, too, if you're the one getting the knee to the solar plexus.
I got a light touch, G.
They're both dead.
Damn it.
Which means we're no closer to finding out who's behind this.
Back to square one.
Brandon Booth? Do you want to talk about my dad, too? Last time someone asked about him, I almost got killed.
We're just here to make sure you're safe.
You don't have to talk about your dad.
God knows I'm not talking about mine.
You feel like talking about your dad at all? - Not a chance.
- See? We're all on the same page.
- I live a few blocks away.
- All right, we'll give you a ride.
Car's just around the corner.
So Van Nuys High, huh? You either ran a search on me or that was a lucky guess.
It's obvious, you're not the only person who grew up in Los Angeles.
- Reseda.
- Bingo.
I hated Reseda guys.
You know, Van Nuys used to have the hottest girls back in the day.
Still does.
But they got attitude.
They all got attitude.
Hold on.
It's clear, Kensi.
Backyard's clear.
Coming.
Okay.
- Someone's birthday? - Yeah, it's my dad's handwriting.
Only a week late this time.
So typical.
You gonna open it? No.
You know, I was, uh After high school, I didn't have any plans.
You know, no job, didn't know about college.
I know the feeling.
Yeah.
My dad and I are polar opposites.
He's the kind of guy that looks six different directions before he crosses the street.
He actually said to me one time, "If you don't get your act together, you're gonna spend your life trapped in this town.
" Just like every other loser that's too scared to venture out in the world and make his mark and So when did you do it? When did I do what? Move out of L.
A.
, conquer your demons, prove the old man wrong? That's the next chapter of this little pep talk, right? To this day, I've never lived further away than two miles from the house that I grew up in.
Eric just sent me Brandon's cell phone log.
He called Jafar Khan three times today.
So? He's my uncle.
When I heard about my dad, Uncle Jafar was the only family I had left to call.
Okay, I'll handle this.
Okay.
- Callen wants us back at Ops.
- All right.
- I'm telling the truth.
- I believe you.
But if I come back here looking for you and you're not here, I'm gonna find you.
You know that, right? Okay.
Wait.
Do you ever wonder what your dad thinks about you? No.
He never got it, anyway.
Dude moved to Iowa.
What is that? It's probably nothing.
Jafar Khan may be loved by Joint Special Operations Command, but once upon a time, he had another patron saint.
The CIA.
It was a messy break-up, so it didn't take much convincing to get Langley to slip me the file they kept on him.
What was Khan doing for the CIA? Well, from 2002 to 2005, they outsourced interrogations of terror suspects to nations that weren't, well, overly concerned with human rights.
Pakistan being one of them.
Seems Jafar Khan had a very specific style of questioning.
We've seen those body markings before.
Booth's body was in the exact same condition when we found it.
Khan did this to his own brother-in-law so he could have the bounty for himself.
See if there's anything there? Booth mailed it to Brandon the day he was killed.
Eric, where is Kahn now? ISI's refusing to divulge his whereabouts.
Hey, hey, check this out.
What are we looking at? It's a spectron seal, invisible to the naked eye.
This photo is not an original.
It's a scan, with a seal embedded into it.
The pattern contains some sort of message.
- It's a series of numbers.
- Or coordinates.
Latitude and longitude with a time stamp.
That's somewhere in Afghanistan.
Location corresponds to a teahouse in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountain range.
- The time stamp is - Thirty-six hours from right now.
This is Booth's tip.
Booth knew if anything happened to him, there'd be an investigation.
He also knew that we'd question his son.
He didn't send the intel for Brandon to find.
He sent it to us.
Khan said we had 48 hours before the tip went bad, but according to this embedded message, his intel's late.
He's eight hours behind.
Booth misled him on purpose.
By the time Khan gets there, the high-value target's gonna be long gone.
But Khan won't know that.
I sense impending mayhem, and perhaps an outrageous petty cash request.
One simple question, Hetty.
Do you trust us? - Kasi Shariff? - Glad you could join us.
Reimbursing my boss for travel expenses would have set me back in a major way.
Booth played you.
Task Force 232 got here hours ago.
Bagged the Taliban's master bomb-maker.
Your immunity isn't valid in Afghanistan, is it? - Drop it.
- He said drop the gun.
Secure that weapon.
Let's go.
Come on.
Everything's negotiable when you know what I know.
Remember that.
Get him out of here, Sergeant Weaver.
You got it.
I can't believe Hetty authorized us to do this in person.
We had her at the word "tea.
" Deeks? What's up? Hey, um I just came to give you this.
I threw this out for a reason.
I know.
And I'm not telling you to open it.
All right? All I'm doing is giving you another chance.
If you feel like it.
What is that on your fingers? That's nothing.
I carry a Beretta 92FS because the manual safety saved my ass one time during a gun snatch attempt by a junkie.
And if the magazine ever jams, I can just pop a bullet straight into the chamber.
Take a look.
Maybe some other time.
- Hey.
- Hey, welcome back, guys.
Is he staring at us? Yeah.
No, I just What I wanted to say is that l I heard about the whole you know, with the Armenian mob, when they came in and dragged the This actually went better in my head.
I'm derailing.
Let me finish.
Um I have a lot of admiration for the trust that you two have in each other.
That's it.
Okay.
Uh, good night.
What the hell's he talking about? Armenian mob? No idea.
Oh, goody.
Tea.
You know, if you really wanna say you care, you should ditch the card and buy him a pint of bourbon for the big day.
- Hey.
- Huh? All right, kitty cat, behind the back, standing on one leg, double tap, center mass.
Wow.
Can I see your gun? My gun? What for? It's a Beretta 92FS, right? L.
A.
P.
D.
Issue? Actually, yeah.
NCIS agents carry SIGs.
I just wanna see how yours fires.
I'm sorry, you wanna fire my gun? - You're acting weird.
- I just don't like people firing my gun.
- Okay, let me just hold it then.
- I don't like people holding my gun.
- You can fire mine.
- I don't want to fire your gun.
I don't want anything to do with your gun, and it's not personal.
- Feels personal.
- It's just a guy thing.
- A guy thing? - A gun thing.
I said it's a gun thing.
Funny.
You said a guy thing.
Oh, buddy.
Hell hath no fury like Kensi Marie Blye.
The groin? Really? Why does one practice shooting someone in the groin? Rough night? - I'm meditating.
- Mm-hm.
Looks like you're sleeping.
It's called meditation.
Is it normal to snore when you're meditating? - Stop staring at me.
- I'm not staring.
I can feel it, G.
I honestly just don't understand what the big deal is.
You don't trust me.
I'd say that's a big deal, wouldn't you? I have a thing about my gun.
At this point in our relationship, after all that we've done - Zip I'm sorry.
- What? - Did you just say relationship? - No, I said partnership, okay? - You're very annoying.
- Maybe I just need a little bit of space.
- You're on my desk.
- Shh.
Listen, here.
Both of you.
You don't trust each other.
All the fist-bumping and saying you got each others' back doesn't mean squat unless there's trust.
So build it soon, or risk the consequences.
You got it? And for the record, I was meditating.
Oh.
Is that what meditation sounds like? Because I call that yelling.
New case on deck.
Rise and shine.
Meditation is over.
Thomas Booth is an Army sergeant turned Delta Force operator who, until recently, worked closely with the Marines in Afghanistan.
Joint task force ops.
Highly classified missions.
Last night, his car was discovered in a parking garage after closing time.
Booth had placed a wireless video cam on his dashboard.
Knew the meeting could've gone wrong.
Booth put in for retirement He was kidnapped on the exact day he became a civilian.
What was Booth working on? Well, most of Booth's file was redacted.
He was a member of Task Force 232, a unit responsible for hunting down high-value targets in Afghanistan.
Terrorist leaders with prices on their heads.
Bounties of up to 25 million that go to informants who give key tips to units like Booth's.
Bring them in dead or alive.
Some of the deadliest guys around.
So Booth had access to information that was not only classified, but also worth millions of dollars.
Hmm.
Task Force 232 is based at Camp Pendleton, but I've been told the squad's at the team leader's house today for a barbecue.
A half an hour after he was kidnapped, six cars left the garage.
Now, the first five checked out, but the sixth was reported stolen by L.
A.
P.
D.
Just the night before.
Police just found it.
It's a silver Audi A4.
Empty, but it's a start.
You two check out the car.
Sam and I will handle Booth's unit.
We're off to a barbecue.
What would you do with $25 million in reward money? You mean if I wasn't a government employee and I could legally accept it? Ah, probably buy a first-class ticket to somewhere real quiet.
Really quiet.
Someplace you don't take a partner.
You? I would hire the best private investigator money can buy.
I'd have him track down my partner, and when I found him You'd follow me? I'd send him Hetty, in an overnight package, with a big bow.
Heh.
I wouldn't sign for her.
NCIS, right? These are the men of Task Force 232.
Gotta go native.
Clean-cut Marines stand out behind the lines in Afghanistan.
- You heard about Booth? - He got snatched.
You don't seem too upset about it.
Maybe he had it coming.
Not a very friendly bunch.
Seems angry.
Maybe he should take up meditation.
What was Booth's skill set? Why was he assigned to your unit? Languages.
Booth is fluent in Pashto.
Not a lot of guys in the military are.
When he retired early, that left us in the lurch.
Can't communicate with the locals, makes taking down our targets harder.
Why did he retire early? He wanted to be hired by a private contractor as a translator.
They pay a premium for guys with his language skills.
In a lot of ways, we're closer with Booth than we are with our own families.
But when he walked away from our unit with targets still on the ground, he walked away from us.
For money.
Affirmative 27.
Officer, NCIS.
I'm Special Agent Kensi Blye.
What do we have here? We found some fingerprints that didn't match up to our databases.
Gentlemen, how you doing? I need to talk to you guys for a second.
You guys see anything I should know about? Nope.
Sure about that? Well, last night we saw some guys around the corner in the empty lot with flashlights.
- What did they look like? - It was too dark to see, which means they didn't see us.
How many were there? Five went out there and four came back.
That's all we saw.
You can keep giving me money if you want to, but that's all I know.
Hey.
Car's a dead end for now.
Come on.
Do you smell that? That's a hell of a retirement party.
Did Booth have any enemies? Yeah, as a matter of fact, there was someone who hated Booth pretty bad.
His son Brandon.
Marker lines all over his skin correspond to non-lethal wound points.
Lines are targets for these stab wounds.
I mean, just drawing them on must have been psychological torture.
You want to inflict the worst pain possible without killing a guy? This would be the way.
Gunshot to the head.
Mercy kill.
He was interrogated.
Booth had information.
Once he gave it up, kidnappers capped him and dumped the body.
No excessive mutilation indicating a grudge, like a gunshot wound to the groin, for instance.
Judging by the wounds, Booth must have been tortured for hours before he was killed.
He knew something.
But what? Eric, we're outside Brandon Booth's residence right now.
What did you dig up on him? Eighteen years old, only child of Thomas and Yasmin Booth.
Parents divorced when he was 12.
Brandon lived with his mom.
She died two years ago, breast cancer.
Thomas Booth was deployed in a classified location at the time.
Brandon's got a record.
Vandalism, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest.
My Freud's a little rusty, but I don't think we're looking at a kid capable of torture and murder.
Thanks.
You just name-dropped Freud.
Well, dead father, rebellious son who was close with the mother.
Had to address the Oedipus in the room.
Uh, Brandon's not home.
I'm his neighbor, also his landlady.
I knew his mom.
Cut him a break on his rent.
He's had a rough time of it.
We just wanna ask him a few questions.
He's at the diner down the street.
You probably already know this, but they found his dad dead in an empty lot this morning.
We heard they had issues.
They haven't spoken in the past two years, since his mom died.
- What kind of a selfish bastard? - Can you let us in? Last time I checked, this was a nation that protected civil rights.
Let's see your search warrant.
Better make that call, G.
Remember that information I said we weren't gonna need? We need it.
Ma'am, we're federal agents investigating a homicide.
Hundred dollars gets you in.
What happened to civil rights? Does under-reporting rental income for six years count as a civil right? I didn't hear that one mentioned in the "I Have a Dream" speech.
- Thank you.
- Mm-hm.
G, come check this out.
Excuse me.
Storage area.
Huh.
Brandon's a kickboxer.
It's a loose board.
Would you look at that? Look at that money.
And I've been cutting him a break on his rent all this time? Brandon? His dad's.
This itinerary's for Thomas Booth.
Thought you said they hadn't seen each other in a couple years.
Either Booth is using his kid's house as a stash spot without his knowledge, or father and son are a lot closer than anyone thought.
This itinerary has a flight from LAX to Peshawar Airport in Pakistan.
Oh, I've been to Pakistan.
But that food kept me in the bathroom for a week.
Say, I sure wouldn't want anyone to accuse Hey, lock up when you leave.
Departure date? Today.
Yeah, no, no, I got it.
Okay, thanks.
Hey.
See the guy in the suit? Tailored one that costs more than we make in a year? Yep.
He's going.
- Go, go, go.
- Hey, hey.
Take the car, cut him off.
What, so now I'm your sidekick? Hold it.
Is this how Sam and Callen do it? One of them would crack a funny one-liner right about now.
Get up.
- I'm waiting.
- You need to listen to me.
Thank you, Deeks.
You're making a mistake.
Check inside my jacket pocket.
You'll find credentials.
Put down the gun.
What? Why? Diplomatic immunity.
Your name is Jafar Khan? Yes, and I'm here voluntarily.
Although I wouldn't mind seeing you work a pair of handcuffs.
Ah, American girls, so health conscious.
Why did you flee the scene? I'm an operative for Inter-Services Intelligence.
My superiors would prefer I not be photographed.
What brings you to Los Angeles? I'm an asset.
United States Joint Special Operations Command.
And I have a specialty: High-value targets.
Bounties of 1 million and up.
Because you're not an employee of the U.
S.
Government, you've pocketed a fortune in reward money.
I can think of worse ways to make a living, Special Agent Blye.
Who killed Thomas Booth? I don't know.
Prove it.
Voluntarily.
- Pick up, 14.
- Hi.
How was everything? As usual, it was great.
I'm thinking about some dessert.
There you go.
Brandon Booth? What do you want? NCIS.
Want to ask you some questions about your father.
My father? Okay, how about this? Lifelong soldier.
Delta Force hard-ass.
Chest full of medals.
Total stranger.
You guys know more about him than I do.
Mom claimed he was some kind of hero.
I knew him as the most selfish person I ever met.
What do you mean, selfish? He was always requesting deployments.
Always wanted to go back.
Why? The man had skills, Brandon.
He made sacrifices his country needed.
I spent my 16th birthday watching my mother die in a hospital bed.
Dad was off doing things he couldn't talk about in places he couldn't mention.
Maybe we needed him, too.
Last week was my 18th birthday.
Spent it waiting for him to call.
And I'm not sure what pisses me off more.
That he didn't call, or that I was dumb enough to think that he might.
Are you hungry? Does ISI know you're working with JSOC? Of course.
If I didn't tell them, they'd find out.
They're not the CIA, but This can't be good.
You shouldn't have pulled your weapon.
I hope you're not accusing me of being a harbinger of doom, Mr.
Deeks.
What? No.
A harbinger of doom? Of course not.
You know, this guy isn't just an informant for Joint Special Operations Command.
He's a bloody folk hero.
He's put his life at risk to help our cause.
If terrorists knew that he was passing sensitive information on to Americans, both Khan and his family would meet brutal ends.
Go ahead, Mr.
Beale.
I'm messaging you Khan's dossier now, Hetty.
It's a variety of files and images from Joint Special Operations Command.
You should be getting them now.
Getting them, Eric.
That's big game.
Khan sends his tips on to JSOC.
They vet the intel, and when the target's location is confirmed, they send in Task Force 232 to eliminate them.
The man has more than Wow.
Hey, Eric, do we have any information on Khan's personal life? Yeah.
Here it is.
You getting that? Got it.
Booth's former unit, 232.
Booth and Khan were buddies.
Booth filed for retirement, but kept getting calls from his local sources in Afghanistan.
He said he had a tip.
A big one.
Price on the target's head was $10 million.
He wanted to discuss it.
But he never showed up.
I got concerned and began monitoring police scanner reports.
When L.
A.
P.
D.
Discovered a body matching Booth's description, I had to see for myself.
Booth was a private citizen.
He was gonna go back there, take out the target himself and get rich.
Thomas Booth and I trusted each other.
We were family.
- Family? - Yes.
He was my brother-in-law.
That's all Joint Special Operations Command gave you on Khan? I'm betting more intel on him exists.
The problem is, he's too valuable an asset for them to reveal as much as we'd like.
Mm, government agencies are territorial.
If he's receiving special treatment from one, it might put him on the wrong side of another.
But even if Khan does have dirty laundry that JSOC hasn't told us about, how are you gonna find out who has it? Khan's a cloak-and-dagger guy.
He hasn't been hanging out with the Department of Agriculture.
Okay.
What are you thinking, Nell? We found something in your house.
A bag of things that belonged to your father.
You went through my stuff? Can we get a check, like, right now? Did you know he was keeping things? Seems strange, given what you just told us about your relationship with him.
Doesn't make any sense.
Last time I saw him was two years ago.
Why was he stashing things on your property? - I don't know.
- Brandon.
I know what it's like to not wanna talk about your family, especially to guys like us.
But your dad was headed back to the Middle East.
If he came to you for anything at all, you need to tell us.
Look, I didn't know him at all.
G.
It's a little warm for an overcoat.
Gun.
- You good? - Yeah.
Where's the kid? Gone.
Booth married my sister Yasmin almost 20 years ago.
I had just started at ISI.
He was a young Army recruit.
We became close friends.
A spy and a soldier.
Different sides of the same coin.
- Like brothers.
- Booth.
He brought you into JSOC.
The high-value targets, the bounties.
What was the tip he wanted to discuss? He didn't get into specifics over the phone.
Too risky.
He said it involved the location of the Taliban's master bomb-maker, Kasi Shariff.
In 48 hours, the location goes cold, and their bomb-maker will get away.
I'm reviewing traffic cams around the diner and working on tracing Brandon Booth's cell phone.
Keep looking.
He's in danger.
What do we have on the shooters? Afghani citizens with ties to the Taliban.
Their fingerprints match the ones on the car L.
A.
P.
D.
Found.
Taliban? They're a long way from home.
They kidnapped Booth.
They were protecting what he was gonna go after Or they were going after the target, too, and they wanted what he knew.
One of the shooters was carrying a burn phone.
Series of text messages with addresses.
The garage where Booth was snatched, the location where his body was dumped, Brandon Booth's house.
Someone was giving them orders.
Were you able to dig anything else up on the Pakistani spy, Jafar Khan? No.
But I'm still looking.
Yo.
Hold on.
Guys, it's Deeks.
Go ahead.
Booth was killed because he knew the whereabouts of the Taliban's master bomb-maker.
The guy has a $10 million bounty on his head.
One of the top five most wanted men in the world, Kasi Shariff.
This man was behind the police academy bombing last month in Kabul, which killed 189 people.
Weekends, he teaches teenagers how to rig a dead dog so full of thermite that it takes out an Abrams tank.
And whoever is running the shooters now has Booth's intel as well.
Shooters went after Brandon Booth because they think he knows about it.
Is it possible Brandon knows something he's not telling us? The clock is ticking, because according to Khan, this intel is only good for another 48 hours.
Just because Booth did it for the money doesn't mean he wasn't doing the right thing.
If the target gets away, he died for nothing.
Our work is cut out for us, gentlemen.
Locate Booth's killer, and he'll give us the intel we need to take out this Taliban bomber.
Lose him, and those 189 blast victims in Kabul won't be his last.
Send a text.
Whoever's giving orders may not know their guys are dead.
We may get something.
We go in undercover, make contact, get answers.
It's an address in Thai Town.
- How's your Pashto, Sam? - It's better than yours.
Find Brandon Booth.
You can meditate on the way over.
I'll reflect on Zen and the art of locking your ass in the trunk.
I'll work my contacts.
If anything comes up, you'll be my first call.
Sounds good.
- I was talking to Agent Blye.
- Yeah.
What? You slipped James Bond your number? For case purposes only.
How long did it take for Callen and Sam to trust each other? Uh, New Year's Day 2007.
What happened? Oh, uh, they'd only been partners for a month, and it wasn't going well.
No chemistry at all.
Mr.
Callen went undercover to meet the Armenian mob.
Mr.
Hanna stayed outside as backup, but saw that his new partner was badly outnumbered.
He moved in a little closer, but was caught by a sentry.
Sam was dragged before Callen.
The mob boss handed Callen a gun, and demanded that he prove his loyalty, or they'd both be killed on the spot.
Callen pointed the gun at Sam's head and pulled the trigger.
The gun dry-fired.
It was empty.
They went on to solve the case.
Afterwards, Mr.
Callen said he knew the gun wasn't loaded because of its weight.
And Sam believed him? Why else would Mr.
Callen pull the trigger? That's a pretty big leap of faith.
That's trust.
Location is the condemned gym across the street.
I'll tell them we're willing to cut a deal.
Betray NCIS for a payday.
Gain their trust.
They'll take me to who's at the top of the food chain.
Move fast, because time's running out on Booth's intel.
We find his killer, we still got a shot at this Taliban bomb-maker.
Callen, we got a lock on Brandon Booth's cell phone.
Looks like he's on foot just off La Brea and Fountain.
Kensi, Deeks, keep an eye on Brandon.
You sure he's not involved? He's Booth's son.
Jafar Khan is his uncle.
Right now, we can't be sure of anything.
Okay.
Stop right there.
Don't look at me.
Face forward.
You're going to be searched and disarmed.
I'm a federal agent assigned to Thomas Booth's murder.
I know the tip he was sitting on.
Meet my asking price, I won't turn it over to my superiors.
I'm here to cut a deal.
My men have been captured.
Killed.
By me.
How do you know about Booth's intel? Hidden in Booth's son's house.
The exact location of the Taliban's bomb-maker.
- You're bluffing.
- I fail-safed the information.
If I don't place a call once every hour, it goes straight to the Joint Special Operations Command.
Pay me off and the tip stays a secret.
I'm only negotiating with the guy running the show.
And don't tell me it's you.
How do I know you're telling the truth? What are you willing to offer me? I have a partner.
- He knows what you know? - Yes.
I hand him over to you.
I killed your men, you do what you want with him.
Betrayal comes easy to you.
It's the cost of doing business.
What the hell are you doing? Shut up.
You guys make whatever calls you need to make.
You have one minute to come to a decision.
He's collateral damage as far as I'm concerned.
I won't need a minute.
I thought you were bluffing me then and I think you're bluffing me now.
Wait a minute.
I came here to show you I meant business.
Now put down the guns and let's make a deal.
Nice plan.
Hope it was worth it.
I can get them to change their minds in less than 10 seconds.
Right, you'll get what you deserve, you greedy - That's nine.
- Nine what? Times we've done the "corrupt agent betrays his partner" routine.
I didn't know you were keeping count.
You'd keep track, too, if you're the one getting the knee to the solar plexus.
I got a light touch, G.
They're both dead.
Damn it.
Which means we're no closer to finding out who's behind this.
Back to square one.
Brandon Booth? Do you want to talk about my dad, too? Last time someone asked about him, I almost got killed.
We're just here to make sure you're safe.
You don't have to talk about your dad.
God knows I'm not talking about mine.
You feel like talking about your dad at all? - Not a chance.
- See? We're all on the same page.
- I live a few blocks away.
- All right, we'll give you a ride.
Car's just around the corner.
So Van Nuys High, huh? You either ran a search on me or that was a lucky guess.
It's obvious, you're not the only person who grew up in Los Angeles.
- Reseda.
- Bingo.
I hated Reseda guys.
You know, Van Nuys used to have the hottest girls back in the day.
Still does.
But they got attitude.
They all got attitude.
Hold on.
It's clear, Kensi.
Backyard's clear.
Coming.
Okay.
- Someone's birthday? - Yeah, it's my dad's handwriting.
Only a week late this time.
So typical.
You gonna open it? No.
You know, I was, uh After high school, I didn't have any plans.
You know, no job, didn't know about college.
I know the feeling.
Yeah.
My dad and I are polar opposites.
He's the kind of guy that looks six different directions before he crosses the street.
He actually said to me one time, "If you don't get your act together, you're gonna spend your life trapped in this town.
" Just like every other loser that's too scared to venture out in the world and make his mark and So when did you do it? When did I do what? Move out of L.
A.
, conquer your demons, prove the old man wrong? That's the next chapter of this little pep talk, right? To this day, I've never lived further away than two miles from the house that I grew up in.
Eric just sent me Brandon's cell phone log.
He called Jafar Khan three times today.
So? He's my uncle.
When I heard about my dad, Uncle Jafar was the only family I had left to call.
Okay, I'll handle this.
Okay.
- Callen wants us back at Ops.
- All right.
- I'm telling the truth.
- I believe you.
But if I come back here looking for you and you're not here, I'm gonna find you.
You know that, right? Okay.
Wait.
Do you ever wonder what your dad thinks about you? No.
He never got it, anyway.
Dude moved to Iowa.
What is that? It's probably nothing.
Jafar Khan may be loved by Joint Special Operations Command, but once upon a time, he had another patron saint.
The CIA.
It was a messy break-up, so it didn't take much convincing to get Langley to slip me the file they kept on him.
What was Khan doing for the CIA? Well, from 2002 to 2005, they outsourced interrogations of terror suspects to nations that weren't, well, overly concerned with human rights.
Pakistan being one of them.
Seems Jafar Khan had a very specific style of questioning.
We've seen those body markings before.
Booth's body was in the exact same condition when we found it.
Khan did this to his own brother-in-law so he could have the bounty for himself.
See if there's anything there? Booth mailed it to Brandon the day he was killed.
Eric, where is Kahn now? ISI's refusing to divulge his whereabouts.
Hey, hey, check this out.
What are we looking at? It's a spectron seal, invisible to the naked eye.
This photo is not an original.
It's a scan, with a seal embedded into it.
The pattern contains some sort of message.
- It's a series of numbers.
- Or coordinates.
Latitude and longitude with a time stamp.
That's somewhere in Afghanistan.
Location corresponds to a teahouse in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountain range.
- The time stamp is - Thirty-six hours from right now.
This is Booth's tip.
Booth knew if anything happened to him, there'd be an investigation.
He also knew that we'd question his son.
He didn't send the intel for Brandon to find.
He sent it to us.
Khan said we had 48 hours before the tip went bad, but according to this embedded message, his intel's late.
He's eight hours behind.
Booth misled him on purpose.
By the time Khan gets there, the high-value target's gonna be long gone.
But Khan won't know that.
I sense impending mayhem, and perhaps an outrageous petty cash request.
One simple question, Hetty.
Do you trust us? - Kasi Shariff? - Glad you could join us.
Reimbursing my boss for travel expenses would have set me back in a major way.
Booth played you.
Task Force 232 got here hours ago.
Bagged the Taliban's master bomb-maker.
Your immunity isn't valid in Afghanistan, is it? - Drop it.
- He said drop the gun.
Secure that weapon.
Let's go.
Come on.
Everything's negotiable when you know what I know.
Remember that.
Get him out of here, Sergeant Weaver.
You got it.
I can't believe Hetty authorized us to do this in person.
We had her at the word "tea.
" Deeks? What's up? Hey, um I just came to give you this.
I threw this out for a reason.
I know.
And I'm not telling you to open it.
All right? All I'm doing is giving you another chance.
If you feel like it.
What is that on your fingers? That's nothing.
I carry a Beretta 92FS because the manual safety saved my ass one time during a gun snatch attempt by a junkie.
And if the magazine ever jams, I can just pop a bullet straight into the chamber.
Take a look.
Maybe some other time.
- Hey.
- Hey, welcome back, guys.
Is he staring at us? Yeah.
No, I just What I wanted to say is that l I heard about the whole you know, with the Armenian mob, when they came in and dragged the This actually went better in my head.
I'm derailing.
Let me finish.
Um I have a lot of admiration for the trust that you two have in each other.
That's it.
Okay.
Uh, good night.
What the hell's he talking about? Armenian mob? No idea.
Oh, goody.
Tea.