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Friday 27th AprilContinuing this evening is the third season of the hit drama series following a team of special agents who investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related crimes. In tonights instalment, the NCIS crew investigate an ambulance that exploded while transporting the body of a marine killed in a car crash. Two paramedics are collecting the dead body of a marine from a hospital. Lance Corporal William Billy Danforth, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed in a car crash whilst swerving to avoid a deer.The paramedics are no sooner underway than they smell gas in the vehicle. They flee from the ambulance seconds before it erupts in a fireball. Gibbs and his team arrive to inspect the blackened shell of the ambulance, inside which are the charred remains of Lance Corporal Danforth. Ducky thinks it could be an accident, although it was lucky that the two drivers escaped. Lucky in a way I dont like, Gibbs replies. Forensics work by Abby soon indicates that the ambulance was rigged to make it look like an accident. He waited for the drivers to get out, Gibbs surmises. Meanwhile, in the morgue, Ducky has found enough tissue from the corpse to run a DNA test and the results show the body was not that of Danforth. Gibbs relays this to Danforths father, himself a former marine, who is astonished by the news that his son may still be alive. Over at the hospital, Danforths girlfriend Rebecca who was injured in the crash is lying in a coma. At her bedside McGee and Ziva find the friend who originally identified the body: Corporal Kenneth Merrill. The stuttering, innocent-looking Merrill is clearly upset by the death of his childhood friend, Danforth. He tells the agents that on the night of the accident he, Danforth and Rebecca were drinking in a bar.The team dig into Danforths background. Gibbs speaks to his commander and Tony hangs out with his platoon, playing a spot of basketball. Reporting back, Tony tells Gibbs that rumour had it that Danforth only became a marine because of his father. Danforth was inseparable from Merrill, who was as loyal as a St Bernard. Merrill was also known as the Forrest Gump of explosives for his proficiency with bombs. Could it be Merrill that rigged the ambulance? Tony asks Gibbs if hes wondering if Merrill helped Danforth fake his own death to get out of the Corps. No, Gibbs replies. Im wondering who they got to play the part of the dead body.
Further evidence emerges to throw suspicion on Merrill. The bartender at the bar where Merrill and Danforth were drinking reveals they had a fight. Meanwhile, Tony and McGee discover a bloodstained bottle of prescription pills with Merrills name on it at the scene of the accident, and Abby identifies the trigger of the explosion as a disposable cell phone. A list of calls around the hospital at the time of the incident reveals a call made from Merrills phone.
Just as the evidence against Merrill seems overwhelming, Danforths father suddenly provides him with an alibi. He says that Merrill was with him at the time the ambulance exploded, and he rejects the idea that Merrill was involved: Hes like a son to me, he says.
Kenny had nothing to do with this. Gibbs is unconvinced, especially when Merrill disappears, but he needs more evidence. In the event, it is Abby who provides it. She has found Danforths prints on the bottle of pills and identified the medicine as anti-rejection tablets.
If Danforth was taking them, hes had a transplant, Abby says. In which case, the DNA they sampled could have come from the donated organ, and the body could be Danforth after all. Only one person seems to hold the keys to the mystery, and Gibbs goes back to Danforths father to extract the truth.
Executive Producers Mark Horowitz, John C Kelley Writer Steven D. Binder Director James Whitmore Jr A Belisarius Production in association with Paramount Network Television
Tagged in NCIS