1.20: "Missing"

by Sammie

KATE. I thought you couldn't type.
TONY. I've decided to improve myself. [Uh-huh. And I'm the pope.]
KATE. Well, in that case, you might wanna lose that shirt. It went out of style three years ago.
TONY. This from a girl who keeps a pooka shell necklace in her purse?
KATE. My grandma gave me those. Wait, you looked in my purse?
TONY. Sorry, did I say that out loud?
KATE. Tony, you are so lucky you didn't have sisters growing up.
TONY. Why's that?
KATE. Because you’d never have reached puberty. Of course, one could argue you still haven't reached it. Very professional.
(Actually, the computer game Tony's playing is kind of funny. It's a game where there are lots of little caves, and Osama pops out and waves at you and you have to hit him. Kind of like those arcade games where the beaver pops up and you have to whack him with a huge hammer.)
TONY. It's my lunch break.
KATE. It's 9.30 in the morning.
TONY. I'm on Greenwich Mean Time. [UM...that makes it 2.30 in the afternoon. STILL not lunch time...or very late,]
KATE. Well, you're gonna be on unemployment if Gibbs catches you doing that.
GIBBS. Doing what, Kate?
KATE. Nothing. Um, I was just giving Tony here some fashion advice.
GIBBS. On what.
KATE. Oh, he was just thinking about getting both of his ears pierced.
GIBBS. That right, Dinozzo?
TONY. I think Kate misunderstood, boss. What I was really talking about was elongating the lobe, which is a surgery -
GIBBS. Hey, you wanna look like a gay pirate, that's your call.
TONY. [mouths] Thanks...
KATE. [mouths] You're welcome.
(Yes, but nothing escapes Gibbs' notice....)
GIBBS. And Tony, if that game's still on your computer in the morning, I'll pierce your ears myself.

Marine disappeared. (From the teaser we know he's in the sewer system, chained up.) They question the waitress (Alex Menses, who played Robert's Italian girl Stefania on "Everybody Loves Raymond), who remembers he was here with another woman - most likely having an affair. The waitress likes Tony and asks Kate about him, and she says he's a nice guy. The waitress is happy: "I'm a sucker for a man in a checkered shirt." Kate looks on in disbelief.

They bring the woman, Mrs. Carol Powers, into the office. She's a Washington Post reporter. They don't get much out of her except that Atlas said someone was killing the members of his old unit.

Abby's building a model of Gallipoli...because she likes the way it sounds. Abby's so funny. She figures out that the mix Atlas ingested was braun, a mix of speed and codeine to knock him out. Legal in Okinawa and the Phillipines. Okinawa was the last duty station of Maj. Joe Sako, the new CO in Atlas' command - AND a guy Atlas got in a fight with in 1992.

They head out to meet Sako.

TONY: Rush hour. Kind of a misnomer, if you ask me.
GIBBS: I didn't.
TONY: I mean, it's not like anyone's really rushing anywhere, and it always takes more than an hour. They should call it -
GIBBS. 'Shut up and sit there before I shoot you' hour.
TONY. I was thinking of something a little shorter. [SLURP]
GIBBS. [SNATCHES THE DRINK OUT OF TONY'S HANDS AND CHUCKS IT OUT THE WINDOW]
TONY. that’s littering.
GIBBS. Fine me.

Gibbs gave Abby a task - look up everyone connected to Atlas - since she was so bored. She's found that several Marines with Atlas' same job title have disappeared. They all served with Atlas in the Philipines and had Sako as a CO. Gibbs orders Kate and Tony to investigate it and goes by himself to MTAC, where he watches the tape from "Bête Noire" of the hostage-taker shooting the camera repeatedly.

Gibbs comes in, and Tony is zonked out at his desk. Gibbs takes a slice of cold pizza and wakes up Tony and tells him to find Kate. Tony turns around, looking: "Kate, Kate!" I guess he notices her by her desk, because then he hollers, "KAAATE!" and she shoots up into a sitting position. "WHAT!?" She looks so funny...wow, bad case of bed hair. She wakes up fast, though, and sees Gibbs eating the cold pizza. Grossed out...she declines the slice Gibbs offers her. Well, I don't have a problem with cold pizza, but Gibbs offers her the slice he's already eaten half of. Gibbs, she's your agent, not your family.

Unfortunately, the all-nighter hasn't turned up much besides Sako's fight with Atlas was most likely over a woman. Tony's got a solution - let him follow Sako for awhile. Gibbs keeps Kate with him and then orders Tony to call in every hour so they can check on him.

KATE. Look, just don't take any chances, OK? If we're right bout Sacco, he's got more than a screw loose.
TONY. Aw, and here I was thinking you didn't care.
KATE. It's not about caring. If anything happens to you, I'm gonna get stuck here working with Gibbs alone.
TONY. Aw, he's not that bad.
GIBBS. Hey! DiNozzo! You still here?
TONY. Then again, you may be on to something.

Kate and Gibbs are working on the case, generally unworried about Tony so far, but Abby is. She's "got this weird feeling" which Gibbs dismisses in the abrupt Gibbs way. Abby tries someone more sympathetic...to no avail.

ABBY. What do you think, Kate?
KATE. Oh, I think you're just suffering from the aftereffects of your party last night.
ABBY. All I drank was Red Bull.
KATE. How many?
ABBY. Eighteen.

Tony trails Sako to the bar. When Sako leaves, he follows, but starts going woozy and collapses while he's on the phone with Gibbs. When Kate and Gibbs arrive, he's long gone, dragged away and dumped in the same spot as Atlas.

By then, the kidnapper-killer has been dumping stuff (honeybees, then a chain with a cross) into the sewer room where Atlas is. He knows why he's there and tells Tony. Their base was being closed in the Philippines, and they all had girlfriends by the base. So they decided to ship them home. They were padlocked from the outside, with just food for a few days. Then Sako changed their orders...so the girls were left alone in the containers. They died slowly. One of them was Sako's girl - who left Sako for Atlas. (Tony heard about her during their all-night research session.)

They've found Sako's car by the sewer system. Kate and Gibbs head in...and Sako's can be heard hollering for the gunny. He reaches the room where Atlas and Tony were, but they've made it out, Tony helping Atlas along. They're running from Sako as Kate and Gibbs follow. Tony is about to cut their way out when Sako finds them.

HIGHLIGHT BETWEEN THE ~ FOR THE ENDING: ~ He starts talking about an insane woman and getting Atlas out of the sewer system and fast, but before either Tony or Atlas can figure out what he's saying, he's shot dead in the back.

(That's a Marine - Sako hates Atlas' guts and would rather go without him, but he comes after Atlas to save him when he figures out what's going on.)

The killer is the waitress from the restaurant. She was one of the girlfriends shipped home, and since she was the youngest, all her friends gave her their food and they died, slowly. She slept with their corpses. It was Sako who opened up the crate and discovered what had happened - and found her. She's about to kill Atlas and Tony when Kate and Gibbs appear. She's surprised, and Tony grabs the opportunity to smash the gun from her hand. ~

Back at headquarters, Tony is back to his old self. How do we know? Complete diarrhea of the mouth. "Admit it, you were worried about me, right? You don't have to say anything, I know. OK. I want you to say it. You care, right? So...you're saying you don't care?" Aw. Gibbs tells Tony he's irreplaceable as Kate just looks on, amused.
 

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Crazy Credits

• Some might recognize the actress playing the killer/waitress, Vanessa: Alex Menses, who played Robert Barone's Italian fling Stefania who comes to America on "Everybody Loves Raymond."

• article "Dayna TV: For the Cause": "Throughout the month of May, "Extra" host Dayna Devon has been on a whirlwind tour of TV, popping up in cameos on more than a dozen shows all around the dial. But dressing up like demons and cave girls wasn't just for fun -- it was also for charity. Dayna has donated all of her acting fees from Dayna TV to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which helps children infected with the AIDS virus.

  All those zany, short-lived cameos raised $10,000 for the Foundation, and "Survivor" host and charity spokesman, Jeff Probst, came by to accept the check from Dayna.

  Here are just some of the shows where Dayna popped up last month: # "NAVY NCIS" -- as the belle of the bar, Dayna caught co-star Michael Weatherly's eye."