Hollywood Agents
By Galaxy1001D
NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles and all characters are owned by Belisarius Productions and CBS Television Studios. No actors were harmed during the making of this story.
Four years ago a boyishly handsome man in his fifties was sitting behind Director Jenny Shepard's desk at NCIS headquarters at the Washington Naval Yard in Washington DC. Director Shepard was in Europe and Leroy Jethro Gibbs was the agent with the most seniority that wasn't trying to get her job. He wasn't interested in a promotion; he was good where he was and didn't want to get saddled down by politics and paperwork when he could be tracking down the bad guys. He certainly didn't want to read all of the reports on her desk so until she came back he came up with his own system.
"Sir you didn't sign this report," Director Shepard's beleaguered assistant told him as she handed him a file.
"Where's he stationed?" Gibbs asked while holding away from him in a vain attempt to correct his farsighted vision. "Boston? Oh I know this guy. He's a good agent." With that, Leroy Jetho Gibbs signed his name and placed it in a short stack marked 'done'. "What else we got?"
"Sir, you didn't even read it!" gasped the horrified assistant.
"I don't need to," Gibbs assured him. "Anything else that can't wait?"
"Here's a report from Special Agent Sam Hanna," the assistant handed him a second folder. "He's currently stationed in Los Angeles."
"California," he grunted in distaste as he set the file in an enormous 'to do' box. "Hollywood agent. What else have you got?"
"Sir you can't just ignore a report because it came from Los Angeles!" the assistant insisted.
"You don't know those guys in California like I do," Gibbs sighed. "They've never set foot onboard a ship. They don't dress professionally. Their police work's sloppy. Jenny can read their reports when she comes back. What else you got?"
"Sir if things work out you may be promoted to operations manager at another location!" the assistant pleaded. "Don't tell me that you'd turn it down if they assigned you to California!"
"In a heartbeat," Gibbs assured her.
Four years later it was a beautiful day in Los Angeles, because the only weather they ever get is hot and sunny.
In their secret LA headquarters the agents of Team Callen awaited for news from their lovable leader.
"So what's the good word, G?" Senior Field Agent and ex SEAL Sam Hanna asked. Sam, a large bald coffee-colored man with the build of a football linebacker could be intimidating, but his team spirit and natural charm usually put people at ease.
"It's official," Senior Field Agent G. Callen, a handsome man who kept his hair shaved to a stubble shrugged with his famous wide grin. "Hetty's calling in sick."
"Hetty! Aw naw!" groaned LAPD Detective Marty Deeks, the scruffy blonde quirky NCIS/LAPD Liason Officer. "That's like having your own mom call in sick! She's the one who holds everything together around here!"
"Come on, it's not the end of the world," said Special Agent Kensi Blye, a dark slender woman with a cute smile. "Hetty's just calling in sick not dying of the plague. If she needs an extended absence Washington will send us a substitute, no big deal."
"As a matter of fact, Washington has already sent us one guys," announced Nell Jones, a tiny underage girl with a red pixie cut hairstyle.
"That's right Callen, he's an old friend of yours," added Eric Beal, their tech operator whose penchant for Hawaiian shirts, baggy shorts and flip flop sandals made the handsome German-American blonde look more like a surfer than an expert in computers and electronics. As a matter of fact, Eric Beal did like to surf. "Ladies and gentlemen, on special loan from Washington, may I present Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs!"
"I'm gonna kill Vance for this," Gibbs, a former marine in his late fifties grumbled as he entered the room. "If he thinks this is permanent he's got another think coming," he added as he took a sip from a 'large' size cup of steaming gourmet coffee. Unlike the others, who were dressed in casual clothing, Agent Gibbs was dressed professionally in a suit and tie. "All right, we got a dead petty officer who was knifed in a bar. Get on it!"
"On it Gibbs!" Sam nodded. "Any particular cover we should take?"
"What?" Gibbs spit out some of his ridiculously expensive coffee in surprise. Sam blinked twice and wiped his face.
"Yeah Gibbs," Callen nodded while grinning like a maniac. "What's our cover on this caper?"
"Cover?" Gibbs frowned. "What are you talking about? You're NCIS agents for crying out loud. Get over to the bar and secure the crime scene! Where's your medical examiner?"
"Medical examiner?" Kensi scratched her head. "Since when do we have a medical examiner? We don't have a medical examiner."
"No ME?" Gibbs spit more of his coffee out, causing Kensi to flinch and wipe her face. "This is a murder investigation! How do you guys expect to solve any homicides without an ME?"
"That's where I come in," Marty Deeks announced pompously.
"And who the hell are you?" Gibbs demanded.
"Detective Marty Deeks, sir, on special liaison with NCIS," Deeks melodramatically deepened his voice while trying to appear casual. "No problem. I'll get on the phone and get LAPD's medical examiner over to the crime scene and the autopsy report will be on your desk in a matter of hours."
"You're letting the local LEOs examine the body?" Gibbs gasped in horror. "I've heard of budget cuts but this is ridiculous!" He turned his attention to Eric. "Beal, what is it you do around here again?"
"I'm the tech operator sir," the computer geek hunky surfer told him.
"Fine, where's the lab?" Gibbs asked while taking a sip from his coffee. "I'm gonna want to talk to your forensic specialist before this case is done and I want to know where to find her."
"I'm an intelligence analyst sir, not a forensic expert," little underage Nell stammered.
"Fine, where's your forensic specialist?" Gibbs asked before taking another sip of his coffee.
"We don't have one sir," Nell apologized.
Gibbs spit out more of his coffee and Nell backed away and wiped her face with her sleeve. "No forensic expert?" Gibbs sputtered. "How the hell you guys solve any cases around here? How do you analyze the clues you guys gather? What? Do you mail them back to Abby in Washington or something?"
"Actually we don't," Callen admitted.
"We send them out to various labs," Sam muttered. "When we bother to gather evidence at all."
"What labs?" Gibbs demanded. "Whose labs?"
"Sometimes LAPD," Deeks shrugged.
"Sometimes other intelligence agencies," Kensi shrugged also.
"You send your evidence to other intelligence agencies?" Gibbs howled in horror before taking a swig of his coffee and spitting it out onto the faces of Deeks, Kensi, Callen, and Eric. Callen never lost his inane grin, not even when he was wiping coffee off his face. "And you don't think those guys might take your investigation and cut you out of the loop?" Gibbs demanded. "What is wrong with you people?"
"What do you mean?" Callen asked, his grin never leaving his face.
"No ME, no forensic specialist. Hollywood agents," Gibbs shook his head in disgust. "You've got two people who basically do the same thing!" he gestured helplessly at Eric and Nell. "You outsource your evidence to strangers to be processed… When you bother to collect it in the first place! You guys must be the laughing stock of law enforcement! And they called me a dinosaur back in Washington! Looks like some of the things I read about you guys are true!"
"What did you read about us guys?" Sam asked defensively.
"How about the time that Special Agent Dominic Vail was kidnapped?" Gibbs growled. "You managed to set up a meet with his two kidnappers. You had satellite surveillance on his kidnappers to exchange your man for their sister. The satellite detected two heat signatures inside the building that were moving. Two kidnappers, two heat signatures, both of them mobile. That meant that your man wasn't in the building. They didn't bother to bring their hostage to the swap. What possible reason could the kidnappers have for meeting you if they didn't bring your man?"
"They double crossed us," Callen smiled. "They just wanted to kill us and get their sister back. But we really brought Kensi in disguise…"
"Did you really think the kidnappers wouldn't notice that she's not their sister?" Gibbs snarled.
"Hey no problem G," Sam shrugged. "We put a bag over her head."
"He's Gibbs, I'm G," Callen grinned.
"Sorry G, I forget it was your name," Sam shrugged. "I thought we went through this. 'G' is a generic term for 'cool dude' used throughout the black community…"
Sam was interrupted by a hard smack to the back of his head. "Eyes on me!" Gibbs growled. "'G' is not his name! It's his first initial! His first name is 'George'! What kind of government agency would hire someone who doesn't even know his own name?"
"No way G!" Sam protested. "I thought you told me you didn't know your first name!" He staggered forward as Gibbs hit him in the back of the head even harder.
"I swear, I don't," Callen insisted. "The system never told me what my real name is… ow!" He was cut off by Gibbs smacking his stubbly head.
"What did you do that for?" Callen rubbed the back of his head.
Gibbs replied by smacking his head again. "For lying to your fellow agents," Gibbs grumbled. "Are these idiots so stupid that they fell for that dumb 'I don't know my real name' story? Is that how you maintain your silly 'man of mystery persona'?" He glanced around at Callen's teammates in contempt. "And you guys fell for it? You jerks must be total morons!"
"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.
"Because only an idiot would enter the building when you know the bad guys are waiting to kill you!" Gibbs insisted. "When you fools went to the exchange to recover Dominic Vail, you had satellite surveillance, didn't you? You knew they didn't bring Agent Vail. They had no hostage! And what made you think that Agent Blye would look like their sister if you put a bag on her head? Did their sister always go around with a bag on her head? You knew they were itchin' for a fight! The only way they would surrender is if they were heavily outnumbered and all their exits were blocked. If you guys like working with LAPD so much why didn't you just have SWAT surround the building and wait for them to surrender? Instead you had a shootout at the OK Corral and nearly lost three more agents. You killed them both and lost the only lead you had to recover your agent. Way to go guys!"
"We couldn't call SWAT," Callen grinned. "We'd totally blow our cover!"
Gibbs blinked at Callen in surprise, shook his head to clear it and then glanced over at Deeks. "Blow your cover? Are you insane? You hand over your investigation over to LAPD every week!"
"We work in counter espionage," Sam insisted. "We gotta keep a low profile; no one can know who we are! That's just the way we do things."
"Yeah, one time some guy on the street called my name and I had to throw away my cell phone and sever all contact with the agency!" Callen nodded.
"Were you working a case?" Gibbs asked.
"No, I was in-between cases," Callen admitted.
Gibbs winced as if he was in pain. "You!" he pointed at Sam. "Hanna! Big Guy! Hit Agent Callen as hard as you can!"
Callen's dopey grinned vanished to be replaced by his only other facial expression, one of surprise with a slight hint of concern.
"Sorry G," Sam shook his head sadly before coldcocking him.
"Let me get this straight," Gibbs put his hand over his eyes as Callen staggered back to his feet. "You were just walking down the street. Somebody calls your name and you have to cut all contact with NCIS? What are you, insane?"
"I was made," Callen nodded while grinning. "No sense exposing the rest of us."
"If you never reveal your 'secret identity', how do you take a dead marine away from the local LEOs?" Gibbs asked him.
"We had to flash our badges a lot before Deeks here joined the team," Callen gestured at the blonde cop. Deeks hummed a bar of 'Dragnet'.
Gibbs hit Callen on the head so hard that the younger man staggered forwards a few feet. "And what were the rest of you doing?" he demanded.
"We had to shut down operations," Eric offered.
"Why?" Gibbs shook his head sarcastically.
"Callen was made," Eric gulped. "We had to shut down all operations and disable all computers, electronics and communications."
"Are you telling me that because some guy on the street knows Callen's name that you had to disable your own communications center? Knocking out an enemy's command and control functions is the first step to any successful attack, and you idiots did that to yourselves? Can you guys be any stupider? It's a good thing that guy didn't know that Callen's first name was 'George', otherwise you morons would have had to shoot yourselves!"
"I know," Sam shook his head in relief. "Narrow escape there, G!" He was rewarded by a head slap.
"Let me get this straight," Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the former USMC gunnery sergeant repeated. "Every time you investigate a homicide you identify yourself to the local authorities, but when some stranger shouts your name on a public street you have to ditch your cell phone and go on the lam. And the rest of you cut off all contact with the outside world. In LA. In the United States of America. When you're not even undercover on a case! When you have full law enforcement capability, you decide it's better to act like enemy spies! And you're all okay with this?"
"Of course," Sam nodded. "That's what we're trained to do."
"Line up everyone," Gibbs sighed in resignation. "In a line. Eyes front. Like you're in the marine corps. Or the playground." When the team complied he walked in front of them, extending his hand so he could smack the whole team in the face with one extended slapping motion. "My God you guys are total idiots," he grumbled.
"Wait a minute, Gibbs!" Callen protested while maintaining his stupid grin. "You always told me that a slap to the back of the head was a wakeup call but a slap to the face was an insult!"
"No amount of slapping could wake you guys up," Gibbs shook his head in disgust. "And Callen! Wipe that stupid grin off your face! Honestly! It's like you only have two facial expressions, and ninety-nine percent of the time it's that stupid grin! Wipe that dopey grin off your face!"
"I'm trying to, Gibbs!" Callen stammered through his nervous smile.
"Callen, I'm gonna give you three seconds, exactly three seconds to wipe that dumb smile off your face before I gouge out your eyes and use that empty head of yours for a bowling ball!" Gibbs roared. "Now stop smiling! Wipe that stupid grin off your face!"
Callen pursed his lips but continued to smile involuntarily. "I can't help it, Gibbs!"
Gibbs punched Callen in the stomach and the younger man staggered to the floor. George Callen looked up to see Gibbs shouting in his face. "Callen, you had best square yourself away and start giving me results or I will definitely mess you up! Now get up! On your feet!"
"Yes sir," Callen groaned and trying unsuccessfully not to smile.
"Let me guess: That report of Miss Blye going undercover as a cat burglar to find out why that guy was breaking into a Navy warehouse is true too."
"What did we do wrong then?" Kensi asked indignantly.
"Didn't the suspect shoot a man in cold blood right in front of you while you were wired?" Gibbs asked her. "Callen and Hanna were on the other side of the building. They could have intercepted him while he was leaving and nabbed him. He just murdered a man and had the evidence on him! You were a witness! What more did you need?"
"We wanted to know what he was up to…" Callen started.
Gibbs silenced him by slapping the back of his head before slapping the entire team in the face a second time. "I don't care what he was up to!" he yelled at them. "You could have found that out in interrogation! The man was a murderer! You had more than enough to convict! Instead you idiots let him go on with his plan! You guys are morons! Who trained you idiots?"
"Hetty," Deeks offered.
"Stoolie," Sam grunted.
"All right, listen up maggots!" Gibbs shouted. "It's obvious that I was sent here to train you, to turn you sorry losers into the best agents NCIS has to offer, so that's what I'm going to do! If you morons survive my training you'll make Sherlock Holmes look like Inspector Clouseau! But until that day you are pukes! You are losers! You're the lowest form of human life. You are not even human frickin' beings! You are nothing but unorganized whiney pieces of amphibian poop! Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard, but I am fair! There is no bigotry here! I do not look down on squids, nerds, skirts or jocks. Here you are all equally worthless! And I'm going to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to be part of NCIS! During this training the first and last words out of your filthy sewers are going to be 'sir'. Do you maggots understand that?"
"Sir! Yes Sir!" the team chanted.
"Baloney! I can't hear you!" Gibbs sneered.
"Sir! Yes Sir!" the team repeated at a louder volume.
"Good! In the meantime, I need to check up on Hetty," Gibbs said as he turned to go.
Henrietta "Hetty" Lange was a short wizened gnome of a woman who wore large eyeglasses in her old age. She was at home drinking a cup of tea on her backyard patio when Agent Gibbs walked over to her. "Good afternoon Agent Gibbs," she smiled pleasantly, "is there anything I can do for you?"
"Did you train Callen's team?" Gibbs asked, getting right to the point.
"Of course, someday Mister Callen will be running things," Hetty nodded.
"And you're fine with the way they all go about their jobs?" Gibbs asked disbelievingly.
"Of course that's the way I trained them," Hetty confirmed.
"I see," Gibbs nodded grimly. Just before he picked up a folded lawn chair and hit her so hard that she fell out of her chair.
END