Renee and Horatio are just driving her dark green F-350 XLT Super Duty through the French Quarter of New Orleans. When they hear through dispatch that the suspect of their sailor's homicide and the attempted murder of Renee had been spotted driving in their direction.
As the suspect drives past them in a black Jeep Patriot, the pair of police officers put on Renee's emergency siren, and they race after him.
Renee's truck easily overpowers the Jeep by pulling up next to it. She tries to run the Jeep off the road. When out of the corner of his eye, Horatio sees the driver side rear window go down.
Through all the years of police work, it tells him what was going to happen. Without fail, he sees the muzzle of an AR-15 sticking out of the window. Just as it dawns on Horatio, what he had just seen the pair hear rapid gunfire.
Bullets fly through the air shattering all of Renee's windows. One of the bullets hit Horatio in his right shoulder.
Seeing her brother get shot causes Renee for a split second to get distracted. Horatio falls forward from the force of the bullet.
Renee getting distracted causes her to slam into a parked vehicle. Hitting the vehicle at high speeds sends her truck airborne.
If her truck didn't have raisers and oversized tires put on aftermarket, she would have died on impact with the other vehicle. Instead her truck vaults off the side of the other vehicle and barrel rolls. The truck flips end over end, spinning out of control.
By this time, Horatio already hit his head on the side of the door. Her brother was knocked out. Eventually, Renee hit her head on the steering wheel, knocking her out.
When her truck eventually stops, it's endless flipping the airbags finally deploy. The force of the deploying airbags smashes into Renee's ribs, breaking several of them for at least a second time. When the airbag impacts with her lungs, it causes her left lung to partially collapse for a fourth time.
During the horrific crash, Renee's police radio button got jammed by a piece of shattered glass, so dispatch heard the whole thing. That was the best thing that could happen.
The dispatcher's voice manages to rouse Horatio, bringing him back to consciousness.
"Lieutenant Caine? Sergeant Kerrigan? What happened? Do you need an ambulance sent to your location?"
Opening his eyes, he quickly responds to the dispatcher's voice. "I think I'm ok." Glancing at his sister, he sees Renee slumped over the steering wheel. His sister has blood flowing from a fresh head wound.
"Nae… Nae… wake up… open your eyes…," he pleads with his sister.
Renee doesn't move or respond in any way.
"She's not conscious. You better send two ambulances to be safe," he finishes talking to the dispatcher.
Horatio has to get himself and his sister out of the truck since he can smell gasoline, and he can see flames licking at the rear doors of the truck. He is scared that the truck might blow up.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, he attempts to open his door. Finding it stuck, he pulls himself out of his shattered window.
Wincing with pain from his gunshot, he now has to get Renee out and away from the ticking time bomb that is her truck.
Reaching through the driver's side window, he pulls out the dive knife that his sister always kept in a thigh sheath on her left leg. This is one time that he was grateful that his baby sister is a lefty. With the seatbelt cut, Horatio slides the blade back into his sister's thigh sheath.
Cutting Renee's seatbelt, he pulls his sister clear of the wreckage just as the truck catches fire. Horatio manages to get the two of them out of harm's way just as his sister's truck explodes in a huge fireball.
Luckily Renee left Echo at the NCIS headquarters when she took her brother to her favorite beignet place, Café Beignet, for breakfast. The two of them were heading back to HQ when they hear that the suspect they were looking for was heading their direction.
Lying his sister on the ground, Horatio hears the ambulances approaching their location.
Horatio knows his sister needs the attention more than he does. So he hides his gunshot wound until his sister is taken care of. The first ambulance takes Renee to the hospital.
With his sister safely inside the first ambulance, Horatio tries to pretend that he is okay. Fortunately, one of the paramedics was standing near Horatio. Watching the ambulance carrying his sister drive off, Horatio collapses to the ground hard. Horatio managed to save his sister, but he went into shock.
In the ambulance, Renee finally comes to and opens her eyes. When she sits bolt upright without any warning signs, the paramedics have to push her back down.
They attempt to calm her down by telling her, "Lieutenant Caine is in the ambulance behind us."
When Renee hears that her brother is okay, she calmly lays back down and accepts the attention of the medical staff.
Getting to the hospital, Renee is rushed into the trauma room. Once in the trauma room, the doctors order x-rays of Renee's head and chest.
When the medical staff sees her x-rays, they are in complete shock. How can anyone survive the injuries that she obviously endured?
They never saw someone with as many metal plates and screws in their skull before. Every bone in her skull had at least one plate and a dozen or more screws in it.
Her chest x-rays revealed that she had broken all of her ribs at some point in time. Given the scar tissues that formed around the fractures, the doctors determine that all the breaks had occurred eight to ten months before.
The attending staff is impressed with this small Marine and MDPD officer. She was obviously a survivor and a fighter.
The new X-rays show that she re-broke four ribs and partially collapsed her left lung. The doctors just stabilize the broken ribs. She still needs surgery to repair and re-inflate her collapsed lung.
Horatio arrived shortly after his sister. He needs to have the .223 bullet removed from his shoulder. The slug failed to go through his body since it had already traveled through the truck's door and seat when it entered his right shoulder.
When he got out of surgery, he calls Pride. They had the suspect in sight, but he got away.
"Pride, its Horatio. Renee and I were a crash. We were pursuing the suspect when someone in the back seat of his Jeep opened fire on us. I got shot, and Renee flipped her truck."
"Renee hit her head hard. I got us outright when her truck exploded."
Pride was just glad that Horatio and Renee are okay. He knows that his team will get the suspect sooner or later.
The more the suspect fights and tries to get away, the more and more Pride and his team want to take the suspect down. Now it had become very personal to Pride. By this time, he is very fond of both Renee and Horatio.
While Horatio and Renee were both still in the hospital, Pride sent Gregorio to bring Echo to the hospital and LaSalle to the crash site.
Hannah brought Sebastian with him to help collect possible evidence to definitely connect their suspect to the crash.
Approaching the crash site, neither Hannah nor Sebastian could believe that one person survived, let alone both passengers.
The once Hunter Green Shiny truck was now a blackened burned-out shell. The fire burned hot and destroyed everything.
A week after Horatio and Renee are released from the hospital, the two settle into staying at a local nine-story hotel.
Renee had not yet been cleared to return to the field, but Horatio was. This meant that Horatio had to leave his sister at the hotel while he continued to work the case.