Disclaimer: NCIS:LA and its characters are obviously not mine.
Is this it?
Am I going to die?
My luck ran out?
Funny how when things go really bad, you get less fancy in your thoughts. I always thought when it was my time, something big would happen, life flashing before my eyes, highlights of some 30 odd years or a revelation would occur to me.
Now as it happens, all I can think about it is the end and if this is it?
Probably it is, I mean I'm stuck in a box about the size of a coffin, its way too hot outside and the few holes in the box are just enough and no more to give me enough air not to die from suffocation.
It is also dark in here.
Just like a lot of the last nine months, I now find myself cursing the day I got involved with NCIS. Their bigfooting, superiority complexes and the need to put their agenda as so much more important than everyone else.
I wouldn't have believed it would be because of them, I've ended up here now. Three months I've been back at the behest of LAPD doing an undercover operation into a multi-faceted organisation, human trafficking, drugs, guns, you name it they were into it. The organisation was run as a business as ruthless as Wall Street and the street gangs of LA. They blended their legitimate business with the illegitimate so well that no one could touch them from the outside.
LAPD asked me to go under, to infiltrate and get into a position of trust. That was three months ago, three months of hard work, disturbing work in a lot of cases. Though through it all I had a purpose, a focus, to put the bad guys away and go home alive.
Why did I going back willing to LAPD for this? Well for one I still work for them, no matter what Hetty or the others think. I'm still an LAPD cop and when they call I answer. Though if I'm honest, I was going to contact them anyway, things change and maybe I was going to quit being liaison anyway.
Why could the driver of this truck not have stayed on a proper road, these dirt tracks just bounce everything around. In this small box, that means plenty of head knocks and bruises. Don't know why I'm bothered, I'll be dead when they stop. Hopefully it will be a quick shot to the head, but knowing these guys it won't be.
Maybe it all started going wrong after the events with Sidorov, I didn't handle the aftermath particularly well. Maybe I closed off a lot but in my defence it's not really the kind of thing you just shake off. Coupled with the pressure to be the old Deeks, it just wasn't working for me. The glances, the comments being made when people thought I could not hear them, it was all getting a bit much. Then just when I thought I was getting some equilibrium, Blye gets sent halfway round the world on a secret mission that supposedly only she has the skills for. While I called her Wonder Woman, it has to be said that there are many agents with expansive skillsets, Callen leaps to mind though he has plenty of his own problems. And it seems to have been Hetty that made the decision after putting it off for so long to send her. It may have been a good thing, but things didn't go well for me. And it seems a lot of it was a mole hunt and sniper mission. Well I could name about twenty agents just from looking at NCIS files who could have handled that mission. But mine is not to question why, good for her, getting some recognition for her skills.
She is a great technical operator as they call them. I know Sam and Callen think she is a natural operator but coming from my perspective too much of it is technical learning. While she is convincing in her short term undercovers, she doesn't imbue them with the life necessary for long term work. She has never had to, she thinks because she lives her life where she lies about who she is to others she can do it but at the end of the day she gets to retreat and be herself. Long term undercover isn't like that, you have to be the person not just wear it like an outfit. I thought Callen at least would have understood this aspect but then I suppose working all over the world has its advantages for long term undercover work. Working in LA, you are always on knife edge, as you never know when you will run into someone who knows you and if you aren't being that person you slip too easily. They may mock LAPD's lack of cover creation, but without the backup of a federal agency it forces their undercovers to be really good at what they do.
Look at me, some deeper thoughts appearing as I move towards my death. Personally I was hoping for the flash sequence of surfing or the last ten issues of Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions, something entertaining at least.
Maybe it was good that she went, it let me view myself in a different light, forced me to realise things about myself. I was good as a cop, for me it is more than a job or title, it is a way of living, aiming to take the bad guys off the street and making things a little better. Maybe it's not the whole saving the country thing of NCIS OSP but sometimes we get so focussed on the big picture stuff that details and people get missed.
It really started to hit the fan when she returned though. I had looked forward to it but when the reality happened, a few weeks later I couldn't stop myself from thinking why couldn't she stay away. It reminded me of a pop-country song with a bit of the lyrics being:
"Well I'll admit that I was wrong
You said "I miss you"
Oh yes I do
Honey, I miss you being gone"
I hate myself for thinking it, but at the same time at least then I would have had some semblance of reality as I knew it then. I understand her mission was a success, and that is a good thing, but she lost or gained something over there. I'm not sure which but for me it was bad. I went from being a partner, an equal in the team to being the tag along or towards the end desk and paperwork support. Why did I keep coming back? Why did I still look for affection there?
I wish this little road trip was over, don't think my head can take the hits or the heat in this box.
Everything had to be done her way when we worked together, admittedly not really much new there, but the constant condescension in her voice and manner were too much. The whole 'you are not an agent' thing starting cropping up from her, then Callen and Sam (who I thought I'd been getting along with better) started making little comments as well.
Maybe I'm sensitive, maybe they were wrong, but it didn't really contribute to a good working environment. Nell had been still coming out in the field with me but then that stopped and suddenly she was going out in the field with Blye. I asked Nell why the change, Blye wouldn't really give me the time of day now. Nell didn't know, she had just been told that she was to partner up with Blye more and not with me.
I found out by accident, overhearing a conversation that Blye had gone to Hetty and demanded that Nell be sent out with her and not me. The general gist of the demand was that Nell should get mentoring and experience from a proper real agent and not just a LAPD cop liaison. I don't know what the reply from Hetty was but I do know Granger and Vance were name-dropped by Blye into the demand. And well it went from there.
Gradually I was turned into a proper liaison, not getting out into the field, Nell taking my place. Nell is a great person but she is not really an undercover agent, she has skills but the move to fieldwork takes more than that. She had been learning and I thought I had been doing a good job, obviously the powers that be don't want her corrupted by the cop tag-along. I know I'm not an agent and there were things people like Blye, Callen and Sam would need to instruct her on properly not the on-the-job education I have.
Eric tried to help me but he and I differ, he is happy to stay in Ops, I'm not. I'm also not happy with the fact that Nell started to pick up on the attitude of Blye et al towards me. Even when I tried to help her, she looked down at me (a real feat for someone I tower over, but then maybe Hetty taught her that) and promptly mentioned that one of the others had a different way of doing it, the NCIS way.
Hetty seemed to be oblivious to the effects all this was having on me, or maybe this is revenge for me not signing the application to become an agent when she offered. Doesn't stop her from treating me like one of hers when it suits, taking my bike away from me. Amazingly she hasn't taken a bike away from Blye but then Blye is the golden child of the moment. I wonder what happened with that bike, I lost a lot of money there. Mind you, money is the least of my worries at the moment. As they say, you can't take it with you.
When LAPD called with a long term assignment I jumped at the chance. I was up and out of the Mission before I'd even finished the call. I typed an email to Hetty as I was on the phone and sent it before getting out of there.
I won't bore you with everything that has gone on since that day, suffice to say I've lived the life of one Adam Musgrave, business consultant to the stars of the underworld as I like to fashion it. Money laundering, shipping, deals, enforcement, you name it I'll do it or arrange it. I started out freelancing for several organisations, but eventually my targets bought my exclusive services for themselves, not that they gave me much of a choice in the matter.
Maybe I should have haggled for a better deal - though if I'd done that I may not have gotten as far as this box.
For the last three months, I haven't been Marty Deeks, I was Adam Musgrave - completely out of contact with law enforcement save for a weekly intelligence dead drop. Long term isolation covers are hard, but I think I needed it, it was good to be someone else. I just wish it could have been someone nicer and less criminal. Too many nights have I spent washing the dirt of the day off my hands, being an enforcer is not a fun job for the victim or the enforcer. The worst was when it was the people being smuggled through the operation that had to be disciplined. I hated it, but I knew enough to do it so it looked really bad but wouldn't leave long term damage. At least not physically anyway.
How NCIS managed to stumble onto this organisation I don't know, but god I wish they hadn't. Blyes and Jones appeared in the 'offices' one day, I was busy my back to them until I turned round. It was small, almost unnoticeable but this crew didn't get where they were by chance. The point man, also the third in charge of it all, saw the slight widening stare of the eyes from Blye, the gasp from Jones. Why would you send such an inexperienced agent into this operation, I know they have to learn but not with this group?
The point man, Joel, picked it up straight away. He shifted their little meeting to a small room. I don't know what was said but after about twenty minutes, they were shuffled out and sent away with a message that they would be contacted when the operation was secure. I think I knew then that I was blown but I played it to the hilt.
"Seems you aren't what you appear to be, Musgrave"
They had blown me.
"Our new friends know you as Max Gentry, or at least that's the name you gave them. I'll have to thank them. I knew a man inside, someone named Max Gentry helped put him there. My colleague Mark had a quick chat with a friendly cop and a few moments later. Max Gentry turns out isn't really real, and neither is Adam Musgrave."
This was bad, all around the operation was being piled up into trucks. The merchandise of all types readied and loaded. This operation would be gone in ten more minutes. I hoped someone had eyes on this place. LAPD knew about it but long term observation was tricky and I was still a day away from a drop. Maybe damned NCIS had the place under observation.
"Turns out Max Gentry is really an LAPD detective. I'll need to thank my new friends without them spilling that name has helped both of us, I'll need to make sure they know LAPD is looking at them. Mr Deeks, sorry Detective Deeks."
This was bad, really really bad. I tried to convince him that he was wrong but unfortunately the cover was blown. Two of the men in the warehouse tried to grab me. I got away for a time, but the numbers were against me and someone clocked me round the back of the head. Then I woke up in a box on the road trip to who the hell knows.
NCIS, Blye and Jones couldn't you have found some other operation to investigate. It'll be my fault though, I didn't keep NCIS updated or something, I didn't do my liaison job, no I was out doing my real job not the paper pushing crap they stuck me with. Couldn't you have sent in other agents?
Is this it?
Am I going to die?
My luck ran out?
After all that I'm back to three questions.
The truck stops suddenly, I'm so tired, I can't keep my eyes open or is it just getting darker?
The truck tailgate is noisily pulled down.
My box is pulled out of the truck and dumped on the ground. The world goes dark.
Am I alive?
Do you think when you are dead?
All I can now think about is will me dying be noticed? Or will I just be another cop lost to duty?
I'm not dead yet, the box is moving.
I can hear voices, so faint but I can hear them.
I hear a noise close by.
Then is the box opening?
The light is blinding, so bright, so warm and something lifts me towards it.
I'm going towards the light.
Lyrics from Miss You Being Gone - The Band Perry.