A body is found in the water of a high end golf club. It appears to be a woman who had plastic surgery. Hodgins recognizes the facial reconstruction as Vivian Prince, a political reporter who outed operatives all over the world when an anonymous source known as The American convinced her that the NSA went too far. 

When NSA agent Ryan Gill shows up to see all of the evidence in the case, Cam tells him he has no right to it and has him leave the Jeffersonian. Hodgins worries that they’ve planted listening devices in the Jeffersonian.

Booth and Brennan find out that Vivian was planning to cut off her ex-husband’s alimony payments. Sal, her ex-husband says he still loved her and didn’t kill her. Sal say that Kate Colfax, the new, younger reporter at the newspaper, wanted Vivian dead. 

Ryan Gill tells Aubrey to ask Kate Colfax about the encryption key she’s been using to unlock Vivian’s files to try and find The American. Kate tells Aubrey she broke into Vivian’s home because she couldn’t figure out how to write the story of Vivian’s death without knowing who the American really was. She turns over Vivian’s laptop.

Angela figures out that the encryption code can only be broken by a combination of a password and Vivian’s blood. They have to pull it from Vivian’s bones. They find an email asking her to meet someone at a hotel on the night she was killed. Bones figures out that the murder weapon was part of a room service lid. The room service attendant says he saw Vivian six months ago when her husband caught her with another man and had to be dragged out he was so angry. 

The husband says he never saw the man in the hotel room. He only saw his expensive shoes. When Hodgins finds the hotel room is covered in Ryan Gill’s fingerprints he realizes the man had been there before and that he is most likely The American. Booth confronts Ryan who admits to being The American but swears that Cooper Blackthorn from NSA contractor Grey Stream Solutions killed Vivian. Cooper admits to torturing her but he didn’t kill her. 

When Brennan discovers that Vivian was hit with Ryan’s metal detector, they discover that Ryan really did kill Vivian because she was going to continue to expose agents around the world in order to save her job and she wouldn’t give him back his jump drive. Ryan is arrested but says never found the drive. Later, Hodgins finds the drive hidden in Vivian’s office. 

Brennan surprises Booth when she flies Parker in for the holiday and gets them hockey tickets for Friday night. Everyone gathers at Booth and Brennan’s home for Thanksgiving: Booth, Brennan, Christine, Hank, Angela, Hodgins and Michael Vincent, Cam, and Aubrey. Hodgins tells Booth he found the drive and asks him what to do with it. Booth says to destroy it so no one else gets hurt.