LL Cool J wears a MTM Black Vulture

In the CBS publicity shot, Sam Hanna stands under a pier on the Pacific coast with a slab of titanium on his wrist. Hanna is a former Navy SEAL turned federal agent, played by LL Cool J across all fourteen seasons of NCIS: Los Angeles, the steady half of a partnership with Chris O'Donnell's G. Callen. The show followed a covert NCIS unit, so its agents turned up in nightclubs one week and firefights the next.

By MTM's own account, the watch is the Black Vulture, the blacked-out version of its Vulture. MTM Special Ops has built these in downtown Los Angeles since the 1980s, and the Vulture is a lot of watch: a 47mm titanium case rated to 660 feet, a Swiss Ronda 509 quartz movement under a sapphire crystal, a ratcheting titanium bezel, and a carbon-fiber dial with a big date at three. The blacked-out version runs around 1,900 dollars.

The quartz movement is the ordinary part. The case carries a second battery, a rechargeable lithium cell that has nothing to do with telling time, and it drives a bank of LED lights built into the watch: ultraviolet to charge the dial, three white torches, an emergency strobe, and a dive setting that keeps the dial lit for hours. You top it up by plugging the watch into a wall. The signature feature of this operator's watch is a flashlight.

MTM outfitted both leads, the Vulture for Sam and a Silencer for Callen, as if it were kitting out a unit. The company keeps a page for moments like this, a roster of the actors and athletes who have worn its watches, and LL Cool J is on it with the Black Vulture listed by name.