“Leap of Faith” first aired Tuesday, October 23, 2007.
An adulterous couple meeting for a noon tryst in a hotel room note a man preparing to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of building near said hotel. The NCIS Team is dispatched to deal with the situation because the man is determined to be a sailor. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), accompanied by Special Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), Mossad Agent-on-Loan-to-NCIS Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), and Special Agent Tim McGee (Sean Murray) go to the roof of the building. Gibbs finds the potential suicide wholly unaccommodating.
Gibbs obtains a photograph of the man using McGee’s iPhone (McGee is afraid of heights) to send NCIS Forensics Specialist Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) for identification against the Naval Academy database. Abby determines the desperate man’s identity to be one Navy Seal Lt. Michael Arnett (Adam Huss). She also notes that he has a gun in the waistband of his pants, of which she notifies the team. Gibbs, meanwhile, scoots his way out on the ledge with Lt. Arnett to talk to him, with Abby and the team feeding Gibbs intel via an earpiece.
Gibbs begins to try and talk Lt. Arnett down using the information fed him. Arnett pulls his gun. Gibbs calmly continues to talk, asking Arnett if he wants to speak with his wife (he doesn’t), finally falling to the question of whether Arnett wants to speak with his 17-year-old sister, Rachel. Gibbs tries to reason with Arnett, asking if he wants Rachel to remember his suicide as part of her senior year in high school. Making headway, Gibbs convinces Arnett to drop his pistol and to come down. Just as Gibbs takes hold of Arnett, the sailor is shot and falls to his death.
Scene post-mortem. McGee determines the shot came from the building directly across from where the sailor was standing and that no evidence was left. Gibbs is visibly moved by the scene of Arnett being zipped into a body bag. NCIS Medical Examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum) arrives at the scene and comforts his old friend in the only way he can, by being all business.
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