When Ziva accidentally witnesses a political assassination, she must surrender to the FBI and deal with the consenquences without Gibbs's help, who is now enjoying his retirement. She learns that the FBI is looking for her and escapes, while the NCIS team, leaded by Tony, must prove that Ziva is innocent. However, when things get more complicated, Ziva seeks help from the one person that always trusted her, Gibbs.

Gibbs is forced to come back out of his retirement to help Fornell, who is being threatened by a convict that escaped from prison. The convict threatens both Fornell and his daughter Emily. Gibbs and the NCIS team re-open the convict's old robbery case, and question a retired sailor who is the only one who contacted the convict after he was sent to prison. The investigation will lead the NCIS team to a surprising discovery.

When a missing Lance Corporal is found dead in a vacant house, the NCIS team discovers that he was buried in the backyard and then exhumed. They learn about his identity and that he was to be deployed to Iraq, but he never showed up for duty. The investigation leads them to a new clue---he had two fiancées. Abby runs the DNA samples from the two women to find out if the DNA is a match to the soil found on the dead man's body.

When an honored Marine veteran is found dead in a hotel, the NCIS team must find out what happened to him. Soon they realize that the Marine didn't commit suicide and that he was a homeless man. After going through his stuff, they find compromising evidence against him, and Gibbs is determined to prove the man's innocence.

When a burnt and mummified body of a missing and wanted person is found on a Marine base, in a furnace, NCIS must work with FBI. The burnt man turns out to be a serial killer. The both teams visit the man's family and discover something shocking. Also, the NCIS team must deal with the book McGee wrote about them, using "fictional" characters.

When a dead body of a sailor is found in an abandoned part of the town, all the evidence seem to point that the person died from unintentional drug overdose, but when the team uncovers more evidence, it turns out to be a murder. Meanwhile, Tony bonds with a local detective while working on the case.

When a Navy Lieutenant becomes the victim of radiation poisoning, the NCIS team must find the person who's behind the crime. The Lieutenant, who is working for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), claims that only his two colleagues knew about his assignment, and whoever it was, the person tried to stop the Lieutenant's next investigation.

When Jenny returns from her European trip, the entire NCIS team will be forced to take a Homeland Security polygraph test, and the deepest secrets of each agent are about to be revealed. Plus, an unarmed Tony and Jeanne are held hostage by a ruthless drug dealer.

When a petty officer is found murdered, Gibbs learns about the mysterious connection between the disbanding of his team and the case.

A Navy bank has been robbed. NCIS is responsible for the investigation. One of the new recruits assigned to the fraud unit, Special Agent Dwayne Wilson, joins the team to help.

A strange delivery in a box arrived at the Navy facilities: The delivery driver and a Navy MP officer discover it is a sailor's corpse.

A shocking revelation comes to light after the team is forced into playing a dangerous war game.

The team is forced to rely on information from questionable sources while trying to stop a criminal bent on stealing government secrets.