Riley McCallister was a retired NCIS Special Agent. He was secretly the head of a conspiracy against NCIS director Leon Vance.
Biography
Pre-Series
In Amsterdam 1991, McCallister met with Leon Vance & shortly afterwards, he secretly hired Anatoly Zhukov to kill Vance. The plan failed when Eli David saved Vance and killed Anatoly's hit team.
Some time later, Riley became head of the San Diego field office and in 1999, had Leroy Jethro Gibbs assassinate Anatoly in an overseas operation, while Jennifer Shepard is assigned to kill Svetlana Chernitskaya. This served to tie up loose ends related to his conspiracy.
Nine years later, McCallister manipulated Svetlana to hire Viggo Drantyev & his gunmen to kill retired NCIS Special Agent William Decker.
NCIS Season 8
In Enemies Domestic (episode), McCallister is revealed to have been responsible for the murder of Former NCIS Director Jennifer Shepard & the former mentor of Current NCIS Director Leon Vance. He wanted to be the Director of NCIS this whole time. After Former NCIS Director Thomas Morrow got reassigned to Homeland Security, he got Jenny Shepard out of the way (at the hands of Svetlana Chernitskaya & Viggo Drantyev), & he attempted to kill Leon Vance in his hospital bed by restraining the weakened director with his cane & fiddles with the morphine injector to give Leon a lethal dose. He mutters: "For once, can't you just die right?" Vance is about to die, but he has just enough awareness left to dig Gibbs's knife up under McCallister's rib cage & collapses seconds later. Leon struggles, but is still able to call his nurse. The nurse enters & immediately tends to McCallister, who has died from his injuries.
NCIS Season 9
His spirit appears in Life Before His Eyes (episode).
Personality
Physical Appearance
Known Victims
- 2010: The following were involved in the hotel bombing:
- Amit Hadar- (Killed in the bombing).
- Eli David- (Survived the bombing & left a trail for his agents to follow).
- Leon Vance- (Survived the bombing with McCallister later attempting to kill Vance once again at the hospital, a move that ultimately failed).
Proxy Victims
- 1991: Leon Vance- (Hired Anatoly Zukov to kill him, but failed).
- 1999: The following were targets of the second assassination operation:
- Anatoly Zhukov- (Shot at point blank range by Retired NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who didn't know that he was covering McCallister's attempt to kill Vance).
- Svetlana Chernitskaya- (Was targeted to die, but Jenny could not kill her. Later shot at point blank range from behind by Former NIS Special Agent Mike Franks to avenge Jenny's death).
- May, 2008: The following were killed by Svetlana & her hit squad at McCallister's direction:
- William Decker - (Having been involved in the 1999 operation alongside Gibbs & Jenny Shepard, Decker was hunted down by Svetlana Chernitskaya's thugs & tortured for information after McCallister gave Svetlana his name. When he failed to provide, he was murdered; his cause of death was registered as a heart attack, but Jenny, Gibbs & Mike Franks knew the truth).
- Sasha Gordon- (Decker's girlfriend who was hunted down by Svetlana Chernitskaya's thugs & forced to tell them about Jenny, Mike, and Decker's insurance policy map location; died after suffering a broken neck, having been pushed off a parking lot).
- Jennifer Shepard - (Killed in a gunfire fight in a diner where Decker's insurance policy map was; McCallister wanted Jenny's job as N.C.I.S. Director, but in order to hide his involvement in her death, he used Svetlana Chernitskaya's past association with Jenny as a cover; her & Viggo Drantyev were both manipulated by McCallister to take Jenny out).