The team investigates a dead marine found hanging by his ankles from the roof of an abandoned building -- along with Gibbs' service number written in blood on the roof above.

Ducky determines that PFC Emilo Salazar, a former gang member, had been dead for about six hours prior to the "shots fired" call to police, but that he did not die easily or quickly.

Gibb knows that only one person would know his service number with the added "G" on the end -- Rose, a woman he met in Colombia while on a secret black ops mission. He calls in his mentor and former partner, Mike Franks, who is the only other person how knew about Rose.

Franks confesses that he brought Rose to the U.S, but she died of cancer 10 years ago. Her 18-year-old son, Tomas, is implicated in the murder -- Gibb's military service number was written on the roof of the crime scene in his blood. But Tomas and the murdered PFC were friends, and the local gang leader, Victor Carmodo, knows more than he lets on.

But both Tomas and Victor are hiding something and as far as Director Vance is concerned, so is Gibbs....

Meanwhile, the team speculates... could Tomas actually be Gibbs' son?

Kudos to the writers for giving us an ending that is far from obvious. You just won't see this one coming. This episode will keep you guessing and trying to connect the dots.  And just when you think you know what's going on, you find out you were mislead. The pace is fast, the red herrings are plentiful, and the ending is a surprise.

I have to speculate, however, that the writers are on the verge of trying so hard to mislead us that they are letting the basic fundamentals of good storytelling fall victim to their compulsion. Sometimes the connections between the players are so tenuous that they defy believability, or so obvious that it seems unlikely our team of characters would have missed it.

(Tony's movie references include Superbad and the original Star Wars trilogy. Abby gets two of her own in this episode: Batman, Star Wars I, and Star Wars IV.)

(Original air date: 2/10)