In the opening of Episode 10 of CIA, we're introduced to a miner in Honduras who discovers a rare-earth mineral. The sample is carefully placed in an envelope and sent off to a Honduran diplomat, who schedules a late-night meeting with a woman at a bar. It's revealed that she works for the company tasked with securing a deal for the minerals.
The woman is taken aback when the diplomat demands more money and walks away. As he leaves, he's struck by a garbage truck. Meanwhile, Colin and Bill are on their way to Colin's house, where Colin shares his belief that Pyramid Security is behind the mole operation and may have also been responsible for Toni's death.
However, their journey is cut short when Nikki summons them to the office. In the office, Colin asks Bill to wait outside and decides to keep the mole investigation under wraps for the time being. When Bill arrives, Gina and Nikki brief them on the Honduran diplomat, Padilla, who was found dead on the streets after slipping into the country undetected. The Honduran government claims they had no knowledge of his presence in America.
Nikki and the team fear that Padilla was a spy and quickly begin investigating his activities. Bill suggests a traditional approach and visiting the crime scene to gather any useful information. The NYPD isn't pleased to see the FBI encroaching on their territory, but they're powerless to stop them.
Colin secretly checks Padilla's pockets and takes the minerals with him. The NYPD officer in charge shows them CCTV footage of the accident, and they note the garbage truck company involved. They head straight to the garbage company, where the driver, Bobby, admits to being paid to give someone the truck for a few hours.
Unfortunately, it was a secret arrangement, and he can't identify who paid him $2000 in cash. When asked about the money, he claims he lost it all in a poker game.
Colin and Bill realized that they were actually investigating a hit, not a hit-and-run as they initially thought. Back in the office, Gina discovered that someone had used her workstation to look up a location in Montana. She told Nikki about the breach and insisted that she had never been to Montana. Nikki suggested it was probably Colin trying to test Gina or someone else and asked her to drop the topic and never mention Montana again.
Meanwhile, Zeeb provided the team with an update on the minerals Colin had taken from the diplomat. It turned out to be a rare earth mineral called neodymium, which is normally used in the tech industry and is worth a pretty penny. They began to question whether the Chinese were involved since they currently controlled 70% of the trade. If the Honduran government stepped in, China would likely lose its geopolitical power and control. Gina explained that most of the country was unexplored, so they didn't know yet.
The team decided to investigate the bar and see what the owner could tell them. The owner agreed to help only after Colin pretended to arrest him for selling to minors. The owner told them about the woman who met with Padilla and gave Bill the credit card she left behind.
The credit card led them to Angeline, who came clean and confirmed that her logistics firm was looking into helping Padilla navigate the neodymium market. Padilla had mentioned that he had two partners but never divulged their names. She also explained that when Padilla asked for more money from her cut, she walked away as a negotiation tactic.
The tech team finally reverse-engineered Padilla's movements to track his movements. Zeeb noticed shadow surveillance on Padilla's phone, and Bill recognized it as a modified sting ray. Zeeb insisted that only someone with high-level NSA clearance could pull such a thing. A deeper investigation led them to Robert Davis in the NSA offices.
Robert said that he had no knowledge that someone from the NSA was using shadow surveillance to track a Honduran diplomat. He went on to explain that someone probably wanted the FBI to think the NSA was involved and send them on a wild goose chase.
In the meantime, Zeeb came across another live breach tracking another diplomat, Juan Ramos, a special envoy from Guatemala. They rushed to save him but found him dead in his hotel room. Colin spotted the killer, Luis, leaving the room dressed as one of the hotel staff and chased after him. Thankfully, they arrested and brought him in for questioning.
They quickly realized that Luis worked for the Los Olivados cartel, and he wouldn't talk to them to protect his daughter back in Mexico. Simultaneously, Gina reported that thermal imaging proved that rare minerals could be found in Central America. They theorized that the cartels had learned about the diplomats and wanted to eliminate them before a deal was made to take over the operation.
All these leads brought them back to Robert. Colin didn't buy his innocence since Robert seemed to be suffering from a stress-induced panic disorder. They looked into Robert and discovered that his wife and daughter had gone silent six days ago.
Colin and Bill headed to Robert's house and found evidence of disturbance. Robert initially refused to cooperate but finally admitted that someone had taken his wife and kid six days ago. They left him a burner phone with a video of the kidnapping.
They later called to issue a dire warning: if he failed to assist them in tracking down three names, they would kill his family. It soon became apparent that two of the targets were already deceased, and alerting the last one would put Robert's family in grave danger. Nikki made the difficult decision that they must save Robert's family while simultaneously protecting the third target.
Bill agreed to let Colin employ his to elicit information from Luis. Colin leveraged Luis's daughter as a bargaining chip, and the man eventually succumbed. He agreed to rat out his boss, provided that Colin could protect his daughter and bring her to America.
The team verified Luis's information before launching their operation. Colin set out to save the third target, while Bill and the SWAT team rushed to save Robert's family. Although the coordination for both operations didn't go as smoothly as they had hoped, they ultimately succeeded in saving everyone involved. The police apprehended the culprits, and Bill felt a sense of pride at reuniting a family.
After resolving the case, Nikki met with Jubal to inquire if he had been keeping tabs on Bill. She mentioned Montana and Toni, but Jubal insisted that he was unaware of what she was referring to.
Jubal clarified that he believed Bill was working under the CIA's radar, and he couldn't inquire about his activities. Nikki wasn't convinced but thanked him and left.
On the other hand, Colin invited Bill over to his place and showed him his investigation board. He confessed that he had been searching for the mole ever since Toni's death.
