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.