When a limb is found floating in the water on NCIS: Sydney episode 3, the team has to figure out who it belongs to and what happened to them.
In "Brothers in Arms," a group of swimmers spotted a shark and then a human arm floating in the water. This particular forearm and hand was dressed like a US Navy SEAL, complete with a dive computer watch. The NCIS and AFP teams had a new crime to investigate.
An arm without an owner
Mackey (Olivia Swann) headed to the scene with Dempsey (Todd Lasance), Jackson (Sean Sagar), Cooper (Tuuli Narkler) and Dr. Penrose (William McInnes). With no recent shark attack reports, Mackey directed the team to treat the case like the Navy SEAL was still alive.
At the naval facility, Mackey and Dempsey got confirmation there hadn't been any accidents among Navy SEALs in the area. Back at the NCIS/AFP headquarters, Cooper received the results of the shark's X-ray, which was conducted to see if the SEAL was the victim of a shark attack, but it came back negative.
Meanwhile, Gleeson (Mavournee Hazel) worked on the SEAL's watch, a make and model preferred by the US Navy. It had the user's vitals but the name wasn't included and the watch's GPS had been disabled.
Dr. Penrose got a positive ID though: Petty Officer First Class Phillip "Filthy" Coleman, a retired US Navy SEAL. No one had reported him missing. Mackey and Dempsey headed to Take a Dive Shop in Neutral Bay to inform his coworkers. They hadn't seen Coleman in a few days, but figured he was on a bender. They confirmed he didn't have any family besides them.
Although the GPS on Coleman's watch had been tampered with, it showed when his heart stopped. Gleeson cross-referenced that with the shark's tracking device and found he was attacked off the coast of Maroubra Beach. Digging further, Gleeson got overhead images from a shark-tracking app, and found an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) in the vicinity the morning of the attack, suggesting that's what Coleman was diving for. The UUV could be the Navy's or from a range of organizations. The problem was that the UUV was no longer there, so they couldn't look into it further.
Looking up Coleman's coworkers, the team found Hamish "Hammer" Moore (Christopher Kirby) and Charlie "Nails" Naylor (Jake Ryan) were former SEALs, while Simon "Oyster" Kilpatrick was a wannabe Aussie Navy diver who got rejected three times on medical grounds. But just then, Dr. Penrose informed them a body had washed up on the shore missing an arm.
Mackey, Dempsey and Dr. Penrose headed to the beach, confirming it was Coleman's. As Mackey looked at the nearby spectators, a nervous man in the crowd caught her eye. When confronted, he ran, hopping in a car to get away.
A drug-fueled secret
Jackson and Cooper went to Take a Dive pretending to be an engaged couple. Moore and Naylor gave Jackson a tour of the boat while Cooper faked a bathroom trip to talk with Kilpatrick. She spotted a peculiar-looking fish in the fish tank, an axolotl, which can regrow its arm if it loses it. When Cooper took a step towards the tank, Kilpatrick stepped into her path in a protective manner.
Moore noticed the gun on Jackson's hip, grabbed it and pointed it at Jackson. "We told your boss the deal was off," Moore said. Jackson was obviously confused. At the same time, Cooper poked around the facility and diving tanks but was caught by Kilpatrick. But Cooper was able to get the upper hand and help out Jackson as well. Free to look around, Cooper discovered some of the air tanks were filled with drugs.
Dempsey questioned Moore, Naylor and Kilpatrick separately. They said the drugs were dropped at sea and they were paid to retrieve them. They claimed they didn't know who dropped them, but said Coleman set it up. The foursome were recovering the drugs when a rush of water swept Coleman away. Dempsey didn't believe them though. He had said the drugs were cocaine, knowing they weren't, but none of the men corrected him. Mackey concluded they were less afraid of prison than whatever their alternative fate would be.
A fight over surveillance footage
Examining Coleman's body, Dr. Penrose found an injury to the head came from a spiked instrument under his wetsuit. The working theory was Moore, Naylor and Kilpatrick clocked him with a sharp object, pulled his hood up and threw him to the sharks.
Chatting with Gleeson, Mackey noticed the shark found at the beginning of the episode disappeared from the tracking screen. The reasoning: there are breeding caves where the satellite can't reach. It was there they found the UUV. It wasn't the Navy's, but it couldn't have been used to transport drugs because it was sealed "like a bomb." The UUV did, however, have a camera. Unfortunately, the data drive was missing. This led the agents to believe Coleman’s death was over surveillance footage.
Cooper found out that Lieutenant Ben Scala, a US Navy SEAL, was Kilpatrick's father, though Kilpatrick goes by his mother's surname. That made them believe Scala was a fallen soldier, and Moore, Naylor and Coleman decided to take his son under their wing.
With this, Dempsey took another crack at the trio. He said they found Coleman's body and proposed his own theory: that they thought they were picking up cargo, but instead found a surveillance camera and whatever they saw scared them so much that they hid the UUV to buy themselves some time; Kilpatrick and Coleman stayed on the surface while the other two did it.
Kilpatrick lied, saying Coleman dived down when the other two were taking too long, but Dempsey said Coleman's watch confirmed he died at sea level from trauma to the back of his head. Moore and Naylor were surprised and asked Kilpatrick what he did. Dempsey believed Kilpatrick and Coleman argued about what to do with the footage, Coleman thinking of national security while Kilpatrick wanted the payout. Moore and Naylor were released while Kilpatrick was kept in custody. Now… where's the footage?
Cooper returned to Take a Dive and headed straight to the fish tank with the axolotl, following a hunch. Reaching her hand in, she found the missing footage. That's why Kilpatrick got antsy when Cooper got too close to it earlier. The footage revealed classified Australian intel. Now the last piece of the puzzle was finding out who the former SEALs were so afraid of.
A watery showdown
Moore and Naylor met up with a man on the dock — the man Mackey chased when Coleman's body washed ashore. The man gave them a backpack of money and asked for the video footage, which Moore handed over. Naylor asked what he was going to do with it, knowing people could die if it got into the wrong hands. That clued the man in that they looked at it. He checked the footage and just saw the axolotl fish, so he whipped out a gun and pointed it at Moore. But as former SEALs, Moore got hold of the gun and Naylor took the backpack and threw it into the water.
Mackey arrived on the scene and told them to put their hands in the air, but they ignored her. Moore and Naylor beat the man and dipped his head into the water. The rest of the NCIS/AFP crew appeared, demanding they let the man go. Instead, Naylor turned the gun toward them. "Don't make us shoot. This wasn't our deal," Mackey said, indicating this was a setup so the team could get to the person behind the footage. Moore and Naylor let the man go so he can be interrogated.
That's when Colonel Richard Rankin (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) showed. Apparently, the US Department of Defense (DOD) had noticed intel leaking for months and tracked it to the man, who's part of the DOD. Rankin explained they were hoping he would lead them to his buyer, but now that obviously wouldn't happen. Rankin took custody of the man and NCIS/AFP were off the case.
Gleeson looked into the drugs found in the air tanks: it was ecstasy from the US. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized it in a bust six months ago, but it wasn't destroyed like its paperwork indicated. Mackey's latest theory was the man planted the drugs as leverage to deliver the data. However, whoever had the power to get ahold of the drugs wanted to spy on Australian intel.
Mackey and Dempsey stood in Rankin's office and placed the footage on his desk, figuring out it was footage from his drone. He tried to explain it away by saying the man was selling intel to a foreign power, but Mackey came back with the fact it wasn't a DOD drone, it was from the CIA. Rankin asked why the CIA would want to spy on Australian ships — a fact neither Mackey nor Dempsey had revealed. Rankin said the drone was a good thing because it revealed holes in NCIS security that they could work on. Mackey wasn't buying what he was selling and sternly suggested Coleman's benefits go to his shop family — then Rankin won't have to worry about putting out the fire that would happen if this case was brought to light. They all seemed to understand each other.
New episodes of NCIS: Sydney air live on Tuesdays on CBS and stream on Paramount Plus.
