1998, he attempted to use the information regarding her earlier affair with her former superior officer John Farrow (Ben Murphy) to blackmail her for money. Farrow paid Ragle the money he demanded, but Ragle threatened to kill him anyway. Mac tried to wrestle the gun out of Ragle's hand, but it accidentally went off and killed him instead. Upon her return she was temporarily assigned many menial tasks as in the administrative law department, and was informed by Admiral Chegwidden that he had withdrawn his recommendation for an accelerated promotion. However, Mac was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel off-screen between the fourth and fifth seasons, after Admiral Chegwidden's renewal of his recommendation for her accelerated promotion. Mac bears an uncanny resemblance to Lieutenant Diane Schonke, a United States Naval Academy classmate of Harm who he had been dating before she was murdered, which initially made Harm uneasy, though he soon got past it. However, Mac was unaware of the resemblance until the third season, when Harm had worked out who had really killed Schonke. Harm, Bud, and later, Sturgis Turner, who were aware of the resemblance, had never mentioned it to Mac, who only found out by finding a picture of Schonke in Harm's apartment, in an old shoebox; it was then that Harm told her everything. It was during that same episode that Mac kept Harm from throwing his career away, by inadvertently appearing as the long deceased Diane Schonke, showing up on the pier wearing one of Harriet's spare uniforms. In addition to European ancestry, Mac also possesses both Cherokee and Iranian ancestry and is fluent in Persian, being capable of recognizing a native Persian speaker by the accent. Her grandmother was a Muslim born in Iran and taught her the basics of Islamic law, although her grandmother was not religious to the degree of ever wearing the abaya, which Mac reluctantly had to wear when she and Harm went outside the perimeters of a U.S. Air Force base while they were on a case in Saudi Arabia. Mac can also speak Russian and German proficiently at near native levels and is able to read an Israeli intelligence report written in Hebrew. Sarah can also get along in Romani. She also always knows the time without ever having to look at a watch or clock and exhibits borderline psychic abilities or extrasensory perception in a few episodes. Mac