With Thanksgiving approaching Ducky is giving out invites for his annual dinner (which few attend) when everyone is disrupted by a new case.

A Marine Lance Corporal found in a corn field dead.

This leads to a think tank that studies young peoples minds for different ways of thinking. The Marine was protecting the kids - one in particular.

The team all sticks together despite their many agendas and plans and ends up cracking the mystery, but it's not easy.

The focal point is a 12-year-old girl, a genius by any measure, and whose capabilities have apparently turned her into a target, or a cash cow.

Children see the world in a special way that adults don't and sometimes from a spacial or cognitive way they take in data and work it differently.

When we first see her, she breaks down a simulation of how deaths in combat should have been avoided. She sees scenario differently in a spacial way, versus a direct action. This also allows her to interpret codes.

Gibbs and the NCIS agents discover that this girl seems to be at the center of whatever is going on and must protect her from whomever is trying to get to her.

She also has a secret she is afraid to reveal.

Eventually, Abby figures out what she's hiding when she sees codes in her artwork. Jamming signals for military ships, that the institute was using for video game sales to China.

The mastermind behind the scheme ultimately tries to abduct the girl, but Ziva takes him out.