Neither Ziva nor McGee had anything new, so Jethro headed down to autopsy to see if Ducky had anything for him. He seemingly walked in on a rather serious conversation between Ducky and Palmer. "- and more on what we could learn from our differences, we would stop killing one another. That is what I pray for."

He didn't slow his pace any. "You're not the only one, Duck." Coming to a stop in front of the medical examiner, he asked, "What do you got?"

"Well," Ducky informed him, "I'm waiting for the cleric until I begin the autopsy proper, but cursory examination indicates blunt force trauma to the parietal lobe and multiple lacerations to his shoulders and neck."

"It's deep," he said, giving the wound a quick once over.

"Yeah," the medical examiner agreed, "and oddly angled. The blow was delivered in a downward-" Ducky made a gesture. "- slicing motion."

"Delivered with what?" he inquired.

"Ah, good question," Ducky said. "Whatever it was was cylindrical."

"We found paint residue," Palmer said, holding up a small specimen jar in the air for Jethro to see, "and some kind of thread in the wound."

"Yeah," Ducky said, "well, we'll have to wait until Abby is done with her analysis. However, there is still much to surmise. The lieutenant has minor scratches on the soles of his feet. And due to soap traces on his lower appendages, it appears that Lieutenant Ellis cleansed his feet again before returning to prayer." The medical examiner eyed him. "Which means he most likely knew his attacker."

That was quite telling in and of itself. The young Marine was in a vulnerable position and likely would've had his guard up. Would've known that his killer was there. "Trusted him enough to turn his back on him, Duck."

Ducky nodded. "And paid for that misplaced trust with his life."

Making his way out of autopsy, Jethro headed back to the squad room. On the way there, his phone buzzed. A text from Shannon.

'Has your dad talked to you?'

'About?' he texted back, more than a little confused.

'I don't know. He just seems a bit off. Upset maybe? He got a small care package from Ms. Hannigan too. She's been cooking for him lately.'

'She's been after him ever since Mom died.' Despite that comment, he was admittedly feeling a bit concerned. He'd noticed his father seemed off as well.

'I was hoping he'd talked to you.'

'No. Never had the chance. Can you try, Shan?'

'Sure, Babe. I'll keep you posted.'

'Try getting him to work on the toys for the kids at the children's hospital.' Having a project to do was always a surefire way to get his father to open up and he wasn't as far along on the project as he needed to be if he was going to be done the toys on time to get them to the hospital on Christmas Eve.

'Alright,' Shannon texted back.

Throwing his phone back into his pocket, Jethro continued to the squad room.

DiNozzo immediately told him that their young widow had an affair with a banker while Thomas Ellis was deployed overseas. Tina called it off when her husband found out.

Leaving DiNozzo's desk he headed over to Ziva. "Got anything?"

"No," she said, "just what we've already said." She smiled up at him. "When are you leaving to pick up your father again?"

"Well," he said with a chuckle, "change of plans. My dad decided to make his own way to my house early this morning and not say a thing."

"Oh?" she asked.

"Caught an early flight," Jethro quipped.

At that point, a young man who Jethro immediately recognized as a chaplain walked in and approached Ziva's desk. "Assalamu alaikum."

"Wa alaikum assalam," Ziva replied.

"I'm Chaplain El-Sayed," the man said. "I'm looking for Special Agent Gibbs."

Jethro quickly introduced himself and then led both Ziva and Chaplain El-Sayed to the conference room to continue their conversation.

"Thank you," the chaplain said as Jethro handed him a cup of coffee. "Most people don't know that the Marine code is not unlike the code of Islam, as written in the Holy Quran. Honour, courage, commitment. Same three philosophies that Islam teaches."

"Yet," Ziva said, "ignorance and bigotry remain a problem in the military."

"Well," the chaplain said, "ignorance isn't unique to any one group, Agent David. All we can do is try our best to educate and pray for acceptance as a whole."

"Lieutenant Ellis," Jethro said, "he find acceptance?"

"Like many of the Islamic Marines I counsel," the chaplain replied, "Thomas tried, but opposition can be overwhelming."

"Yet, he stuck with it," Zica said, "determined to become a Muslim."

The chaplain nodded. "Because I think he found something that was missing in his life. Thomas referred to his awakening as a devout epiphany."

"That's when he became Tareef Bashir?" Jethro asked although it was really more of a statement that needed confirming.

"Yes," the chaplain confirmed.

"And how did the rest of his unit react to his conversion?" Ziva questioned.

"Well," the chaplain said, "some were open to it, others not so much. They found his need to pray multiple times a day inopportune and dangerous."

Stopping his pacing, Jethro took a seat and eyed the chaplain. "Was any one Marine more vocal about it than any other?"

Chaplain El-Sayed leaned forward in his chair slightly before answering. "Thomas did ask me to personally speak to a First Sergeant Louis Tibbens."

"Successful?" he inquired.

The chaplain sighed. "Let's just say that some battles can never be won."

He couldn't argue with that. Sometimes you had to know when to just cut your losses.

Thankfully, they had something tangible to go on now, so Jethro had Ziva contact the First Lieutenant's commanding officer.

Back in the squad room, having met with the director before ordering his team lunch, Jethro immediately got an update. "Spoke to Ellis's C.O. He was on vacation with his family, but he did confirm that Tibbens and Ellis did not get along."

"Louis Tibbens," McGee said, pulling up the man's file on the plasma, "home on leave. Athens, West Virginia. Population: 900. Uh, no criminal priors, Boss, but Tibbens does have two NJPs for being disrespectful to a superior officer."

"Yeah," he deadpanned, "that'll get you ninja punched every time."

"Tony," he ordered, "you and Ziva find Tibbens. McGee, look into Ellis's Muslim life."

"As Tareef Bashir?" McGee asked.

He nodded his head. "Let's see if two names means he's leading two lives."

An hour and a half later, DiNozzo was chatting with Tibbens in interrogation. DiNozzo had ice on his hand while Tibbens has bruises on his face from Ziva.

Tibbens explained the concerns that they'd had with Ellis. Ellis would stop and pray in the middle of a mission or on the road but instated that he didn't kill Ellis. Tibbens and some other men were approached and offered money to get Ellis to quit the Corps for good. The men did it for the safety of the unit.

When DiNozzo asked who offered them money. Tibbens said they found out from word of mouth. They communicated with the person who made the request via PO Box. The money was wired to them, no questions asked.

Jethro arrived back in the squad room from meeting with Vance and was immediately given an update by Ziva and DiNozzo. His Senior Field Agent had run a financial check on the men in Thomas Ellis' unit and only two men, including Tibbens, accepted the bribe for $4,000 each. All the money was drawn from the same overseas account and deposited at the same time.

Jethro'd quickly identified the corporation it was drawn from as a dummy corporation and had pressure put on Interpol to get them to hurry up.

He'd been quite surprised when an hour later DiNozzo had informed him that Interpol had found the dummy corporation and just who was behind it.

"Spoke to Interpol, Boss!" DiNozzo said. "Got the account that was paying those guys to pressure Ellis."

"Got a name?" he inquired.

"Colonel George Ellis," DiNozzo said.

The shock was clearly written on his face. "His father?"

Jethro and DiNozzo drove back to Reverend Ellis' home. Tina and Patrick Ellis were angry at the accusations towards the retired colonel in regards to hurting his own son, which Jethro couldn't say he didn't understand.

then reaches for his gun, heads over to the bookcase to lock it up in a gun safe."It's a lie," Patrick said.

"Not according to the bank," DiNozzo fired back at the teenage boy without missing a beat. "People do things for such misguided reasons."

"Well," Patrick said, "Marine aren't just people, sir."

"You're right, Pat," Jethro shot back. "They're not. But, they abide by the same laws. Your father didn't."

DiNozzo proceeded to ask Tina for the number of the man that she had an affair with. Jethro then asked for their alibis the morning of Thomas Ellis' death. Tina said that she was with friends at the time and Patrick said that he was at school.

Reverend Ellis walked in at that point and told Tina that it was okay, that NCIS had a right to know everything. The reverend then admitted to paying the men in the unit to get his oldest son to 'stop the Muslim nonsense.' The retired colonel felt that if his son realized he was putting his unit in danger he'd stop being 'selfish.'

"What I did was wrong," the man said, "but well-intentioned. And if it led to my son's death, then God forgive me. And Tom's God, too."

Jethro eyed the man. "One and the same, Colonel." With that, he and DiNozzo left the Ellis residence, driving back to NCIS.

Visiting her down in the forensic lab, Abby informed Jethro that she had found minute particles of aluminum and titanium in Ellis' head wounds. The bubbly forensic scientist then did a computer reenactment of the murder for him.

"So check out the death blow," Abby said. "It's the speed at which it impacts Ellis's skull that's what's impressive. Watch this." She then replayed the specific part of the reenactment she wanted to highlight. "Whoever killed Lieutenant Ellis was definitely athletic and knew how to generate some serious momentum."

"Good work, Abs!" he said, giving her a peck on the cheek.

It was 1830 by the time Jethro had dismissed his team and headed home himself for the day, although Ziva wanted to have one last discussion with Tina before she did the same, finally calling it a day.

Shannon and Kelly both gave him a minute to talk to his father alone. It'd been fine until his father decided he didn't like his tone.

"Will you please stop patronizing me?" his father snapped. "If you have something to say to me, Son, speak up."

"Dad," Jethro said, his own voice raised slightly now, "I'm not going to apologize for worrying about you."

"You need to show a little more respect, Leroy," his father said. "I'm still your father."

"Dad," he said with a sigh. Jethro then took his sig out of his holster and headed over to his bookcase to lock it up in the gun safe he kept there. He was typing the passcode in when it really became clear that his father wasn't himself.

"Will you please put that box in another room?" his father asked more calmly. "I don't like being around what's in it."

"It's secure," he assured his father. He didn't understand what was going on with his father at all. The man was raised around guns and raised Jethro himself around them. Hell, the man kept a giant Winchester on the wall of his store.

"It's dangerous!" the Gibbs patriarch snapped. "Why won't you do what I ask? How come everything with you ends up in an argument? For just once, will you listen to what I'm asking you?!"

"Alright, alright," he agreed, still not sure what got into his father, "I'll move it." He'd just move the gun safe upstairs for a few days. That being said, he'd prefer to figure out what exactly was going on.

"I'm going for a walk," his father said after a moment, immediately going to throw his shoes on so that he could leave.

"You want some company?" Jethro asked.

"I'm alright. I'm fine," his father said, leaving the room.

Jethro sighed as he watched his father walk away.

Shannon and Kelly waited a moment and then they both came downstairs.

"You okay, Dad?" his daughter asked.

Jethro sighed again as he looked over at her. "I'm fine, Kellz. It's not the first time that your grandfather and I've fought and I doubt it'll be the last. We'll work it out."

"True," Shannon said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "The two of you are too stubborn for your own good sometimes." She squeezed his hand. "Let's go have some dinner. Your father will be okay, Jethro."

He forced a small smile. "I know, Shan."