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"OSP?"
—Ziva David asking about OSP- Office of Special Projects in the NCIS Season 6/NCIS: Los Angeles backdoor pilot episode, "Legend Part 1".
"Office of Special Projects. NCIS undercover. Surveillance. "
—Tony DiNozzo describing OSP.
"Super cool toys."
—McGee on OSP.

The Office of Special Projects (or "OSP" for short) is a secondary branch or division of NCIS with OSP's headquarters being located on the outskirts of Los Angeles inside an old mansion and like the NCIS agency, it is dedicated to investigating any and all crimes that involve or concern military personnel such as active duty or former members of the United States Marine Corps and Navy which occur on the West Coast of the United States.

Unlike the other branches of NCIS, OSP is also a group solely dedicated to temporary or long-term covert operations/undercover work that the rest of the NCIS agency are either not equipped to deal with or capable of handling with OSP also classified to such an extent that for national security reasons, it doesn't officially exist while those who are assigned to the unit are presumably required to come up with and maintain cover stories to protect the unit's secrecy.

Furthermore, unlike the main NCIS HQ in Washington D.C. where the agents often go into work in public, OSP is a unit where the identities of the NCIS agents and personnel assigned to it are all classified.

It's presumed that not a lot of NCIS agents or personnel in the other divisions of NCIS including the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. know of it, the two expectations being NCIS agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs of the Washington D.C. Major Case Response Team and NCIS Director Leon Vance.

Upon being founded sometime in 2006, OSP began operating inside an office building located in an industrial area of downtown Los Angeles, remaining there for three years, conducting numerous investigations up until May 2009 when following the successful efforts of Gibbs and NCIS agent Timothy McGee working alongside their OSP counterparts to find and stop a terrorist cell operating in the city, NCIS Special Agent G. Callen was attacked and left badly wounded in an attempted assassination, triggering a security alert that resulted in the building being stripped of all materials and later abandoned while its personnel were either put on leave or reassigned elsewhere until a new, more secure location could be found.

Once the second building was presumably found, examined and refurbished before being opened for operations, OSP resumed business sometime later with the location remaining classified to this day.

The Office of Special Projects Team is the main flagship team of the Office of Special Projects and is led by NCIS Special Agent G. Callen with Henrietta Lange as the main Operations Manager for the entire Office of Special Projects division but following Hetty's departure to Syria concerning an unknown mission which occurred in May 2021, retired Navy Admiral Hollace Kilbride has officially replaced her as Operations Manager.

History

Pre-Series

At some point in 2006, Leon Vance, Assistant Director or possible Deputy Director presumably founded the Office of Special Projects which served as a West Coast counterpart to the main NCIS building located at the Navy Yard in Washington D.C. with OSP also dedicated to investigating all crimes concerning active or former military personnel who resided or were on the West Coast as well as defending the safety and security of everything associated with the United States military and its members.

In addition, OSP also began using high-tech surveillance equipment with agents assigned to the unit also going undercover, using false identities or aliases to get close to their targets to gather enough information on them for the case before the suspects were arrested.

In the early days of OSP's existence, Lara Macy was assigned to head the unit with NCIS Special Agents G. Callen, Sam Hanna, Kensi Blye, Mike Renko, Operational Psychologist Nate Getz and Technical Analyst Eric Beale all eventually joining her as well to form the new main Office of Special Projects team while an unnamed number of personnel soon arrived at the office.

The team later chose an abandoned office building that was located in downtown Los Angeles as its main base of operations with many missions presumably being conducted there.

NCIS Season 6

In May 2009, OSP and the NCIS Major Case Response Team in Washington D.C eventually formed a temporary partnership with one another as they investigated a Marine's death in Washington D.C. which resulted in Special Agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Timothy McGee being sent to L.A to work with Macy's team which at the time consisted of Macy, Callen, Sam, Kensi and Renko all operating as field agents while Eric provided technological support and Nate served as the team's Psychologist.

Despite interference from Mossad officer Michael Rivkin who had arrived in the United States to gain information on the terrorist cell before killing its members, OSP along with Gibbs and McGee were able to successfully arrest the leader of the terrorist cell operating out of an auto-body shop in downtown Los Angeles following a gunfight.

After the case was solved, Gibbs and McGee bid farewell to their OSP colleagues before they returned to D.C.

Unfortunately, a few hours later, while in Venice Beach, Callen was attacked and seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting one that many on-lookers including Sam witnessed but thanks to Sam's efforts in calling for help, Callen was able to stay alive long enough for an ambulance to arrive and treat him, ultimately reaching an unnamed hospital with news of the attack reaching Vance while Semper Fidelis (episode) during a conversation between Vance, SECNAV Phillip Davenport and FBI agent Tobias Fornell, Gibbs revealed that Callen had been left in critical condition as a result of the shooting.

In the aftermath of the attack on Callen, it's presumed that OSP was either shut down for a few months while all the personnel assigned there were either placed on leave or reassigned to other NCIS units with a search beginning so that a new base of operations for the unit could be found with NCIS soon discovering an old Spanish-styled mission located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, one that had been condemned during the Northridge earthquake of 1994 which was soon bought, refurbished and opened for business sometime prior to September 2009 or that OSP immediately relocated to the building, having presumably prepared for a situation like that in advance while the original building OSP had been using was presumably stripped off all materials and equipment which were either sent to the new building or placed in storage with the building itself also being abandoned while Macy who had been in charge of the unit was reassigned elsewhere with Henrietta Lange ultimately being chosen as her replacement.

Once OSP resumed operations, Hetty arrived at the new building with Sam, Kensi, Eric and Renko were among those from the original OSP who were reassigned to the new OSP building.

A while later, NCIS Probationary Agent Dominic Vail joined the team, bringing the field team members up to three with Dom also being partnered with Kensi Blye with the main field team at time consisting of Sam, Kensi and Dom, Sam presumably the Agent in Charge due to Callen still recovering from the injuries he'd sustained in the attack against him.

NCIS: Los Angeles Season 1

In September 2009, nearly five months after the attack against him, Callen returned to work a month early and also became the new leader of the Office of Special Projects Team which was now composed of himself, Sam, Kensi and Dom with Eric and Nate providing support.

In January 2010, Dom was kidnapped and ultimately vanished without a trace despite the efforts of his OSP colleagues who searched for any possible leads. As such, Callen put out a bulletin for Dom, classifying Dom's status as missing.

In April 2010, OSP met Marty Deeks, a Detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and who was working undercover at an MMA gym that the OSP team were investigating in connection with the murder of a Marine. Following the case, Hetty who had received a dressing-down from Vance opted to have Deeks appointed to OSP with Deeks serving as the LAPD liaison to NCIS. Deeks worked another full case with the team before he left to work on an undercover case for the LAPD that required him to severe all contact with his new NCIS colleagues.

In May 2010, OSP learnt that Dom had in fact been kidnapped and was being held hostage by a militant group who were hoping to get a prisoner exchange. The OSP team eventually found his location and launched an operation in the hope of saving him from his captors before his execution. Unfortunately, the operation ended in tragedy when Dom was shot after shielding Sam from incoming fire from a lone terrorist. Despite efforts to save him which consisted of Sam performing CPR, Dom almost immediately succumbed to his wounds and died, leaving the OSP team grief-stricken and completely devastated.

Two days after Dom was buried, NCIS Director Leon Vance personally arrived in Los Angeles to stop Hetty from resigning from her position as Operations Manager with Hetty eventually relenting thanks to Callen's actions. In that time, the OSP team learnt that Dom had been kidnapped to exchange for Ala A Din Keshwar, a terrorist. The team were able to recapture Keshwar and shoot Army CID agent Rick Medina dead in self-defense, Medina having revealed to have been on Keshwar's pay roll.

Season Two: The Comescu Family

In September 2010, after returning from his undercover mission, Deeks rejoined the NCIS team and became Kensi's new partner.

In October 2010, Tech Analyst Nell Jones permanently joined the OSP team.

In May 2011, with Hetty's resignation from OSP, Lauren Hunter became the new Operations Manager. It was later revealed that Hetty had in fact simply left OSP to deal with the Comescu family, a family from Romania who sought to kill Callen but thanks to Callen, Sam, Kensi and Deeks, the Comescu family's plans were abruptly halted.

Season Three: The Chameleon

In January 2012, NCIS Assistant Director Owen Granger arrived at OSP, Vance having appointed Granger as the new Assistant Director of NCIS.

In February 2012, Granger tasked OSP with finding and capturing psychopathic arms dealer, Marcel Jeanvier AKA "the Chameleon" who was also an old enemy of Callen's. During the resulting, Callen unknowingly shot Jeaniver in the face, the resulting gunshot causing permanent damage to Jeaniver's face while also prompting Jeaniver to embark on a campaign of revenge with Callen as his main target.

While that went on, the Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted an operation to destroy the network terrorist Tahir Khaled was heading with efforts from Sam and Nate.

Things went quiet for a while until in late April/early May 2012, when after learning of a suspect, Dracul Comescu known to OSP, who was a rival of Callen's and who had also gained access to smallpox, Callen and Sam traveled to Hawaii to aid the Hawaii Five-0 Task Force that Detective Sergeant Danny Williams was temporarily leading to help Five-0.

In the process, Callen found and killed his old rival.

Unfortunately, the celebrations were short-lived as both the NCIS and the Hawaii Five-0 teams later discovered that the virals that they had recovered did not contain any of the smallpox and were left stunned when they found out that a suspect that they had been searching for had already arrived in Los Angeles with nine virals of smallpox, forcing both Callen and Sam to return to LA with Danny and Detective Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly coming along to help.

After a lengthy investigation with both NCIS and Hawaii Five-0 Task Force forming a temporary partnership to find and stop the mastermind, both sides were eventually successful in diffusing a potential devastating situation and after the case was closed for good, having been solved, Danny and Chin bid farewell to their new friends and colleagues before returning to Hawaii.

About two weeks later, Callen's old enemy, The Chameleon emerged, killing NCIS Special Agents Mike Renko and former Operations Manager Lauren Hunter while also framing Callen so that the State Department could arrest him, leaving the entire OSP team in disarray as a result and Hetty resigning from OSP for good.

Season Four: Isaak Sidorov

However, it was soon revealed that the Chameleon's death had been staged and after everything was sorted out thanks to a prisoner exchange, both Callen and Hetty returned to the team once again.

In late May 2013, Isaak Sidorov, a notorious Russian arms dealer received information from the Chameleon that Sam was a federal agent which the Chameleon later informed Callen was his own act of revenge against NCIS who had given him to the CIA at the time. Sidorov later responded by capturing Sam and Deeks and tortured the two men for information, even going as far to ram a drill into Deeks's mouth as a helpless Sam looked on.

Season Five: Recovery and The White Ghost

In September 2013, after fighting against Sidorov's thugs, Kensi and NCIS Assistant Director Owen Granger got the location as to where Sidorov was keeping Deeks and Sam captive. Both NCIS agents arrived but Kensi was forced to tell Deeks that they couldn't release him or Sam just yet as they had to make sure that Sidorov was still convinced that Michelle on his side and that Deeks and Sam were the enemy.

Once that was accomplished with Michelle shooting Sam and Deeks albeit making sure that their deaths were faked, the NCIS personnel who had been lying in wait jumped into action and were finally to free Sam and Deeks and ensure that both men got medical treatment.

Sidorov was eventually shot and killed, ending the case. However, Sam and Deeks were both left struggling in the aftermath of the torture they had gone through at the hands of Sidorov. Deeks took a leave of absence from NCIS for several months and everyone became overprotective of Sam despite his assurance he was fine. Hetty contacted Nate, asking him to return to Los Angeles to help and while Sam remained willing to talk, Deeks completely shut down altogether.

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