The young ensign was having coffee and reading a Wikipedia page on his laptop at the Starbucks in Arlington. Specifically, he was looking at the page about The Mastersingers of Nashville, a singing competition on CBS. A fat civilian man passed by and saw what was on the screen. "You know Wikipedia's not very accurate," the man said.

"I know," the ensign replied.

"So why do you even use it?" the fat man asked, taking a seat at the ensign's table.

"It's a good starting point," the ensign said, hoping the fat man would get the hint this wasn't supposed to be a conversation at all.

"It's a terrible starting point!" the man said. "I'll put it to you like this: you're supposed to run a 5K race. Let's say this napkin is the finish line," the man said, putting a napkin at one end of the table. "This other napkin is the starting line," he said, putting a napkin at the the middle of the table. "The guy with a real encyclopedia starts the race right here, on the starting line. The guy with Wikipedia starts the race way back here," he said pointing to an end of the table opposite the napkin representing the finish line.

"Well, sir, you look like you could use a 5K race yourself," the ensign said, taking a sip of coffee.

"Maybe so, but we're talking about how inaccurate Wikipedia is, how full of mistakes it is," the fat man said.

The ensign closed his laptop. "No, you started talking at me about this. I just wanted to have a cup of coffee and read something online." The ensign took the last sip of his coffee and got up. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I have something to do with the disinformation on Wikipedia?" The ensign put his laptop into a carrying case.

"I'm gonna call your commanding officer and ask him what it is you do with my taxpayer dollars!" the fat man said.

"You do that, sir," the ensign said with barely concealed hostility.

Ensign Michael Norman works at the Pentagon's Wikipedia Warfare Office. Traffic was not bad and he went from Arlington to the Pentagon in 16 minutes. Once settled in his office, he fired up the DoD's proprietary and classified online persona management software as well as an IP address falsifier program.

His task today was to pit two groups of sockpuppets, both controlled by various Pentagon employees, to argue for and against making a tiny grammatical change to an article about a recently declassified Navy device. The intended result was to be for the whole page to be deleted, and the declassified information would remain publicly accessible in theory, but in practice it would be hidden in obscurity. It was the sort of mission Ensign Norman had accomplished quite a few times before. Except today he started choking, literally. In two minutes he was dead.

NCIS theme music goes here. At NCIS headquarters, the usual inane banter, ending up with this silly nugget from McGee: "And then Tony said to Gibbs, oh captain my captain!" McGee made an obscene gesture. "All over Tony's face."

Gibbs came in and glared at everyone. "Dead ensign at the Pentagon. Let's go."

At the Pentagon, Ducky examined the body. "This man was quite clearly poisoned, I have no doubt about that," Ducky said.

"A poison that's difficult to detect for anyone lacking your expertise?" Gibbs asked.

"Quite the contrary, we're talking about a poison that shows up in any of the standard tests, it's almost as if the killer wants us to know the exact poison he used. I'll be able to tell you more once we get the body to my lab."

At the lab, Ducky had a somewhat different conclusion. "I now believe the killer was misled by Wikipedia. He looked up the poison on Wikipedia, which told him the poison is perfectly undetectable. That is diametrically opposed to the truth, that even the most incompetent and inexperienced medical examiner would instantly be able to tell what poison was used."

"And would such an incompetent and inexperienced medical examiner be able to tell what food or drink the poison was slipped into?" Gibbs asked.

"Probably not," Ducky said confidently.

"Can you?" Gibbs asked impatiently.

"Why, yes, of course! It was put into his dark chocolate peppermint mocha."

"From Starbucks?"

"Exactly."

Soon the Arlington Starbucks was swarming with federal agents taking all the equipment apart. "You're costing me a lot of business!" the manager complained.

"It'll cost you a lot more if another customer winds up dead," Gibbs said, unmoved.

Abby and Harm were reviewing the security footage. (Yeah, Harmon Rabb from JAG; he lost the series finale coin toss and resigned his Navy commission). "There! Freeze frame!" Harm said. Abby paused the footage. "The cashier takes the lid off, drops the contents of a packet of sugar into the coffee, puts the lid back on."

"Only it wasn't sugar!" Abby said giddily.

"Yeah, calm down," Harm said.

The manager walked over. "That's Michael. He was our best employee," the manager said.

"Was?" Harm asked.

"He quit two hours later," the manager said. "He could've gone far with this company."

"He was here to do a job," Harm said.

"I see what you did there, Harm," Abby said.

"We're going to need to see his employment application," Harm said.

"Certainly," the manager said.

It was obvious to Gibbs from Michael's application that Michael was a plant. Meanwhile, Ducky finished his examination of the sweetener packets. "Toxic but not poisonous, this artificial sweetener nonsense," was Ducky's verdict.

Back at NCIS headquarters, Gibbs and Abby went over the Starbucks security footage again. "Why isn't his personal laptop in our evidence lock-up?" Gibbs asked.

"Because it wasn't his personal laptop, it was a DoD-issued laptop specifically meant for Wikipedia Warfare Division use," Abby explained.

"So then who knew he was going to that Starbucks?"

It was time to go back to the Pentagon. The officer in charge of the Pentagon's Wikipedia Warfare Office was Air Force Lt. Col. James Packover. "We suspected the Arlington Starbucks was doing something with their WiFi not in line with Starbucks policy."

"And since when is it the Pentagon's duty to enforce Starbucks corporate policy?" Gibbs asked.

"Since we decided to exploit certain features of the Starbucks WiFi protocols for our IP address falsifier software," Packover said. "But it was a false tip. The Arlington Starbucks is doing everything in line with Starbucks policy. Our only issue with Starbucks is their prices."

Gibbs leaned forward. "So who knew Ensign Norman was going to that Starbucks?"

"Everyone in this office, that's it," Packover said.

"Are you sure?" Gibbs asked, with a look that suggested Packover better think a little harder.

"Well, there was this corporate headhunter from Bracket Technologies, Inc. He offered Norman a salary better than that of a 4-star general."

"Do you think Norman would have accepted the offer, if he had lived longer?"

"It's possible, but from the last conversation I had with him, he was in this for the mission, not the money."

"One last question," Gibbs said. "What was his last mission?"

"Well, since you're read in: some documents about a failed Navy cryptanalytic device from World War II were recently declassified, and they were getting mentioned on Wikipedia. But we want those documents to stay under wraps a lot longer."

"Right, of course, it makes perfect sense," Gibbs said sarcastically.

Back at NCIS headquarters. "It's time to pay Bracket Technologies a little visit," Gibbs said.

"I have something to tell you about the Bard Enumerator case," Abby said.

"That case is closed," Gibbs said.

"But it's relevant to this case," Abby said. "I believe that Bard Enumerator was working on a crude online persona management system, based on what bits and pieces he could get from talking to people at the Pentagon's Wikipedia Warfare Office," Abby explained.

Gibbs nodded.

At Bracket Technologies the NCIS team found 'Michael' dressed in a very nice suit, talking to the CEO in a big, corner office with one large glass window. "Didn't Gladys tell you we're in a meeting?" the CEO asked angrily.

"Federal agents," Gibbs said, calmly flashing his badge. "What can you tell me about online persona management systems?"

"A lot, actually," the CEO said, giving 'Michael' a special look. "Gordon Gekko wants to use Wikipedia to influence stock prices. That's a little hard to do with all those self-appointed idiot god-kings on Wikipedia. So you see, the, three, two, one..." Michael and the CEO ducked. A helicopter showed up and shot up the glass window.

Gibbs started shooting his gun, as did McGee, Tony and Ellie. Then Harm got out a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and fired one off at the helicopter, which then crashed before the CEO and 'Michael' could get on it. Gibbs gave Harm a very surprised look.

"I know it's a bit over the top, but you never know when these puppies can come in handy," Harm said as a matter of fact. McGee and Ellie cuffed the CEO and 'Michael.'

The case was wrapped up and Gibbs had one salient thought about Wikipedia to share with his team. "Why don't they just require everyone to edit with their real names?" Gibbs asked.

"That makes way too much sense, Gibbs," Abby said sincerely.

"It's not perfect, but it would eliminate a lot of the problems they're having," McGee said. "No more sockpuppet witch-hunts. No more hidden conflicts of interest."

"But it would be problematic for their donation scam," Rabb said.

"One thing is clear," McGee said. "For matters of life and death, the information on Wikipedia is worthless. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation is corrupt, to put it charitably."