The Last Ninja Warrior
A/N: This story takes place during and after Season 5, Episode 24, "Deep Trouble". Thanks to G for attempting to teach me some basic Russian for this story.
Disclaimer: Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have created. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home.
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It seemed strange to come into the Mission and not see Hetty sitting at her desk, a cup of whatever tea she was fancying that morning in a porcelain cup, being sipped and savored by her discerning palate.
Instead, she was in Washington, DC, waiting there to be called into the committee meeting to answer for her actions and the actions of her team in the White Ghost incident. The official word was she had been placed on administrative leave pending a full investigation. The truth of the matter was that someone in Washington was conducting a witch hunt, and wanted to see her, and maybe her team at the Office of Special Projects as well, taken down. NCIS Assistant Director Owen Granger, temporarily appointed to replace Hetty, wondered if she was going to come clean about this so called "anti-terrorist" operation, and tell it like it was - a CIA assassination attempt of an operative that the Company felt knew too much and over whom they had no more control.
Henrietta Lange was probably not even her birth name since she was also know under other identities like Sylvia Cole, Sylvia Martin, Gloria Edwards, and various other names, according to the 25 driver's licenses she kept in her desk at the Mission, as well as several others hidden in a private safe deposit box, and probably just as many in safe houses only she knew about throughout the world. She was the last of the cold war warriors, and well deserved the various nicknames that were given to her, Black Widow, Little Ninja, the Duchess of Deception. She was all of these, and more. Despite her small size, her presence was intimidating. She had become a legend in the intelligence community, and people, friend and foe alike, had a healthy fear whenever her name was mentioned, whether they had met her in person or not.
Now the enemies that she had made in the various other US government agencies expected her to fall upon her sword and take responsibility for the CIA fiasco that went down in Afghanistan. The only difference with this attempt was that she was wondering if it really was worth her fighting for her position any longer.
Hetty had led a full life. She had been involved in CIA operations around the world, both as an agent, a handler, and station chief. You don't receive the Defense Intelligence Agency Award of Merit and a CIA Intelligence Star just for surviving. She had hobnobbed with the rich and famous stars of Hollywood, like George Hamilton and Frank Sinatra. God only knows how many children she rescued from orphanages, to manipulate their lives until they were molded into the agents, operatives, analysts, technicians, and station managers whom she could count on as her children, eager to protect her and do her bidding.
Her number one team at the NCIS Office of Special Projects in Los Angeles was a prime example of this. Senior Agent G. Callen, LAPD Liaison Officer Marty Deeks, and Intelligence Analyst Nell Jones all were in state run care of one form or another when they first came to Hetty's attention, and Junior Agent Kensi Blye was recruited while she was living on the streets after her father's death. Tech Operator Eric Beale was originally facing twenty years in federal prison for his hacking into supposedly secure government sites, and traded that for a pardon to work for Hetty. Senior Agent Sam Hanna was the only semi-normal one of the group, and the little puppet master chose him to give the whole team some stability. He made it his personal job to protect the team leader and keep him from destroying himself on these missions. After all, there was a reason why Hetty had hand picked each and every member of her number one team. She would never let on what those reasons were, but with Hetty there was always method in her madness.
Their loyalty to their Operations Manager, couldn't be any greater. The three field agents and the police officer resigned en masse from NCIS to follow Hetty in her battles with the Comescus in Rumania, while the two techs fed them all the information that they needed, breaking every security regulation NCIS had, and completely ignoring their confidentiality agreements. Even now, Kensi Blye was willing to take full responsibility for everything that went on in Afghanistan. After the team found out that Hetty was being called to Washington, Kensi sought the little old lady out twice. But each time she tried to ask her if the recall had to do with Afghanistan, Hetty told her not to worry about it and sent her back to work. Hetty knew that the agent was dealing with her own personal demons because of the operation. But the Operations Manager did not tell her that the supposed White Ghost, Jack Simon, was a CIA operative and a friend of hers, and the reason she assigned Kensi to kill the man the agent once loved and planned to marry, was that she knew Kensi would not take that shot, experienced sniper that she was. The end result was that Hetty almost lost her whole team trying to checkmate a CIA plan she felt impinged upon one of her friends.
The only one that Hetty did tell that this was the fallout of the White Ghost incident was Nell Jones. She also said she'd check in every day, and if she didn't, she had given sealed directions for the young analyst to follow as soon as possible. Everything went smoothly until Nell reported that Callen and Sam had gone missing. G. Callen, the one person who was the closest thing Hetty had to a son had disappeared and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. She immediately tried to call in favors, tried to intimidate and threaten people, but all to no avail. No one took her calls. No one could do anything for her. "So sorry, but you know how it is" was the answer she got from everyone.
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Even Jethro Gibbs was unable to help. When she called over at the Naval Yard her call was answered by a receptionist.
"May I please speak to Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, or a member of his team" Hetty asked.
"I'm sorry," she was told. "Agent Gibbs and his team are not available at the present time. Is there anyone else with whom you care to speak?"
"What about Abby Sciuto, would she be available?" the elder woman inquired.
"I will transfer you. Please hold."
The phone was answered almost immediately, "Abby's Lab. What do you need?"
"Abby? This is Hetty Lange. We met when you came out to LA to help us on a case at OSP, the one on which you were kidnapped."
"Sure, Hetty," the young Goth responded, "How are you, G. Callen, and the rest of his team?"
"That's what I need to talk to Agent Gibbs about. Agents Callen and Hanna have gone missing, and I am caught up in bureaucratic red tape here in Washington. I can't do anything to help them from here. I've tried calling in favors and have gotten no help whatever."
"G Callen's missing? That's terrible. But I don't think Gibbs can do anything for you right now. He and his team in the middle of a sting operation for drugs and weapon smuggling at the Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Maryland. But I can have him call you when he's done there."
"Thanks, Abby. I would appreciate that."
It appeared as everything that she had been trying to set up at the Office of Special Projects was tumbling down around her, like a fragile house of cards.
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She had been sitting outside the room in which the inquiry was taking place all morning. A clerk came out and informed those waiting that the Committee had recessed for lunch, but would resume at 2:00 PM that afternoon, and that Hetty would be the first witness called.
She went to lunch at the Oceanaire Seafood Room, a restraunt she always tried to visit when she was in the Nation's Capitol, because there she could enjoy seafood options that were never available to her on the West Coast. After looking at the menu, Hetty decided to have the Maryland crab cake salad and a pot of Dragonwell green tea. She mentioned a couple of things about the preparation of her tea to her server and the young woman left to record her order. A few moments later, one of the chefs came out to visit this customer he had not seen in the past two years, and they had a lively conversation in Mandarin, whether the Dragonwell tea she ordered or a Jade Oolong, would be a better pairing with the crab cake salad. Unable to convince her to change her choice, the chef went back to the kitchen to put his artistry to work, and present her the best meal she had had in months.
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When she was called in to give her testimony, the Operations Manager sat at a table all by herself. – Seated at the table facing her were Representatives Welch and Graves, two members of the House Intelligence Committee and Senator Darryl Burns of the Senate Intelligence Committee, all of whom had security clearances high enough to hear her case, and critical attitudes big enough to destroy her career. She expected to see Leon Vance, the Director of NCIS, seated at the table with them. He wasn't there to have her back. Instead, NCIS Deputy Director Jerome Craig was there to represent the agency. As a purely political appointment, he knew little or nothing about intelligence work, and on more than one occasion, mentioned how worried he was that some NCIS Operations Manager would take his job away from him. She recognized Carl Delgado, the NSA Director, Brad Morton, Director of the CIA, and Charles Addison, FBI Director, from working either with them or members of their agencies. There were two other men at the table, neither of whom Hetty recognized. They were not introduced nor had name plates in front of them, and gave the appearance that they would have loved to be more in the afternoon shadows that were growing in the back of the room than here in the light at the table. These two "spooks" didn't say a word throughout the interview, but took copious notes.
Her interview, or a better adescription for it, her inquisition, started out simple enough, with Senator Burns calling the meeting to order and the clerk asking a basic question. "Will the witness please state her full name and occupation for the record?"
"Henrietta Lange, and I am Operations Manager, Office of Special Projects, Naval Criminal Investigation Services, based in Los Angeles, California."
The committee chewed her out left, right, and center, and then spit her back out onto the floor, trampled on her, kicked her around, and tried to make her feel even smaller and than she actually was. She was questioned on everything she and her team had done.
Brad Morton, Director of the CIA, started things off. The CIA was still bitter that Sam and Michelle Hanna wanted a normal life with the house, picket fence, and kids – especially the kids. Michelle pulled herself out active duty to raise her two daughters. She did come back as Quinn to bring Sidorov down, but even that operation went sour. Her cover was blown, she almost died by being thrown out of a window, surviving only by grabbing hold of a sheet of plastic dangling from that window and climbing back up, as Kensi was protecting her through a running gun battle with two enemy females. Deeks and Sam were severely tortured in that operation and required months to heal. After reading a severely redacted version of the post mission report into the record, the CIA Director dropped the pages and just stared directly at the tiny woman.
"You say you care about your agents, you say you love them as if they were your family. How could you ever be so heartless to send them on missions like this, where they come back to you, battered and broken in body, mind, and spirit?" Morton asked her.
His words stung Hetty to her very soul. She hated to send her agents out, knowing each and every time they could come back injured, tortured, or zipped into a body bag. Each and every time it happened, it tore another little piece out of her heart, but she knew she had to do it.
"It comes with the job, Director Morton, and was what needed to be done." was her answer.
"That's a crock, and you know it. Where in all the job descriptions or where on the application forms does it inform your people they will be shot, stabbed, electrocuted, tasered, starved, or physically and psychologically tortured?"
"Director, that is why it is called the Office of SPECIAL Projects. We get all the cases that are too dangerous for the average NCIS teams. I think that the small number of agents we have lost is a tribute to how special each and every member of this team truly is and how well they do their jobs."
So you're saying that your team is the one that can do the impossible?" Morton asked incredulously.
"Sometimes it takes us a little while, but we ultimately accomplish the goal." she calmly replied.
"I don't believe it," Director Morton said as he shook his head and threw down his papers so hard they went flying over the front of the table. "Not only is she cold and heartless, but she also has a god complex, ordering her agents to do whatever she feels needs to be done, regardless of the cost to the ones who have to do the work. I've heard enough. I'm done with this witness at this time."
Carl Delgado, the NSA Director, took over the questioning. He especially wanted to know about the operations Hetty had run that resulted in the deaths of Lauren Hunter, Mike Renko, and Dominic Vail. Whereas the previous questioning just picked at the scabbed over wounds of her heart, probing into this area of her work was like pouring scalding hot battery acid into those wounds. The Operations Manager had no idea how she made it through the rest of the questioning that afternoon, but there were no more angry outbursts from the committee. She was surprised to find that three hours had passed, and Senator Burns, the chairman of the committee, adjourned the meeting for the evening, and scheduled them to resume the following morning at 9:00 AM.
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As she left the meeting room, the hackles on the back of her neck were raised. Hetty had enough experience in the field to know that someone was following her. She went back to her hotel and entered the dining room, where she received, at her request, a small table in the corner of the room where she could oversee everyone else in the room. In less than thirty seconds he spotted her tail. Now she had to decide what to do with him.
She ordered her meal, broiled lobster claws served with lemon wedges and melted butter. She savored her meal, it was so fresh, something that you could never get on the West coast, and broiled to perfection. As she cracked through the shell, she wished she could destroy the committee members that easily. Then she quickly retracted that thought, knowing that they could suck the life out of her just as easily as she sucked the meat out of these shells. God, how she wanted a good stiff drink. But she would have to ditch her tail before she could indulge in one, because she knew that he would report everything she did to the members of the committee. The way that she was dealt with today, she figured she would be labeled an alcoholic by the committee if she was seen taking even one drink.
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She got into a cab and explained to the driver that she was a federal agent who needed to get away from the man who was following her. She offered the driver an extra $50.00 if he would call and arrange another cab to meet her two blocks from where this one dropped her off. He agreed to do it and called his dispatcher to set things up. Hetty gladly paid him and got out, checking to see that her follower did the same thing. Two blocks of walking and the cab pulled up to take her away. She offered the same deal to the second cabbie and went on her way. By the time she entered the third cab, she saw no one behind her. She still wasn't taking any chances, so she got dropped off in a different section of town, looking to get a room and a bottle, and be finished with both by the morning.
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Next to the motel there was a Tex-Mex bar, Quetzalcoatl's Fountain, having big pictures of an ornamental fountain with exotic snakes entwined on the fountain and trees on both sides of the door. Mariachi music was blaring through the walls, and Hetty decided to stop there first, and then see about a room.
She stepped up to the bar and gave the bartender her order, "Single malt, please, the best you have."
"I'm sorry, señora", the bartender answered her. "We have nothing like that here. As you can see, the people here wouldn't order that at all. The best that I can give you is some Jack Daniels."
"What do you have, then, that's good?" she asked.
We have Gran Patrón Platinum, señora. That is one of the better tequilas that is made" was his answer.
"That's fine. Set them up and keep them coming until I tell you to stop." was the tiny woman's answer.
Drinking the shots of tequila, Hetty started remembering one of the earlier team bonding exercises she had arranged, where both Nell and Kensi allowed the guys to drink their tequila shots off the different parts of their bodies. She smiled at that memory of those better, happier days, and then allowed her thoughts to go back even farther, to a night in the Mexican hills, sitting around a campfire with the guerrilla leader, Che Guevara, each of them drinking from their own half consumed bottle of fresh, raw tequila, discussing which of the two would be the first to be killed by their enemies. She remembered promising him that if she would be the survivor, she would have a drink "of the good stuff" in his memory. So she raised her glass, and said, "Saludcita."
"Thank you, señora, for entering the mechanical bull competition. Each week we get a couple of takers, but not many. So far this week we got none besides you." the bartender said. He looked out at the rest of the patrons as he announced, "Señora will try to ride the bull."
There was as much laughter as there was applause at his announcement. Hetty didn't think the alcohol was beginning to cloud her mind. "When did I volunteer?" she asked.
"I asked for volunteers, and you raised your glass." he responded.
"Oh, no, no, no," she told him. "I was thinking of something entirely different. I wasn't answering you." She didn't want to do it because she was afraid of splitting a seam of her designer pants suit or pulling a thread. Then she would have to suffer the shame of having to reimburse OSP for destroying her wardrobe, just like she continuously yelled at Callen and Deeks for doing.
The bartender offered her a unopened bottle of Gran Patrón Platinum if she would last for the 3 minute ride. When she still refused, he upped the offer to one bottle for each minute she stayed on.
"Leave grandma alone, she's too old to wanna ride the bull." someone yelled out from the back of the room. The hell with it. She became so incensed that someone would consider her too old to do this. She would show them. Besides, the way the questioning in the investigation was going, she might just never make it back to the Mission in Los Angeles to check the outfit back into wardrobe
She took her time as she mounted the bull and got herself situated for the ride. She nodded that she was ready, and the ride started. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. The guy who had yelled at her before had worked his way close to the front and yelled at her again. "All right, grandma, you've proved us wrong – you can get your old bones off now." The anger Hetty had of the younger generation not respecting their elders, brought a scowl to the little woman's face. Just for spite she stayed on for another full minute. As Hetty jumped off, she maneuvered herself so she landed with the short heel of her boot on the jerk's foot. He yelled and took a swing at the tiny woman, but she ducked down, making herself even smaller, and he missed her, but hit someone else in the jaw, dropping him to the floor. Figuring that she could claim self-defense because he swung first, Hetty placed one of her ninja jabs into his family jewels. She was rewarded by hearing his sharp intake of breath and a high pitched squeal, as he fell over in pain with both of his hands protecting the lower part of his anatomy. His friends rushed up to protect him, and a wholesale bar brawl broke out.
The bartender tried to calm things down, but no one listened to him. From his spot hiding behind the protection of the bar, he called 911 to bring the police. In just a couple of minutes, four squad cars converged on the scene. As they tried to stop the fight, a couple of the cops got hit. One swore up and down that a little kid chopped him in the back of the knee, and ten minutes later he still had no feeling in that leg, but neither he, nor the rest of the police officers there could identify who did it to him. The bar was closed down and everyone in it was hauled off to jail.
As she was being booked in, Hetty announced that she was a member of NCIS. Even though she was still technically a Federal Agent, she had turned in her gun and badge to Director Vance when she first arrived in Washington. She had nothing to prove her claims, and so she was placed in a holding cell with the other females while her claims were being checked. No one that they phoned wanted to go out on a limb and confirm her identity, but everyone kept shifting the responsibility upward, until the Director Vance received a call at 2:30 AM. Not appreciating the call at that hour, his answer was short and swift. "Let her rot in jail until the morning, and then I will have someone collect her, and have her hauled into the committee meeting for disciplinary action.
When his answer was relayed to Hetty, her only answer was, "Bugger". She finally figured out that if that was the way her so-called friends were going to help her, she needed to find some new friends.
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Hetty now demanded her one phone call. The officer on duty went back to the registration area and requested her cell phone. Checking it over to see that it didn't contain anything lethal or could be used as a weapon, she brought it over to the diminutive prisoner. Hetty found an area of the cell where she had service, punched in the number, and spoke in a low voice to whoever answered. She didn't worry about anyone overhearing her, because she doubted if they would understand the language she was using.
About fifteen minutes later, a long black limousine stopped in front of the station house, and a very large man got out, stepping up to the entrance with almost military precision.
One of the detectives, who was standing on the steps smoking a cigarette, looked at him and said, "Hey, buddy, you can't park there. That's a no parking zone. You'll get a ticket."
The big man summarily dismissed him with a sneer as he entered the building and walked up to the sergeant at the front desk, and spoke to him with a thick accent, "I am Vasiliy Zinoviy Ilyich from the Russian embassy. I am here for Henrietta Lange. Are you the one I deal with?"
"Ahhh, she is not a Russian citizen, as far as I know, what do you want with her?"
"She told me that she is being held captive here and I need to pay her fine. How much is it that she can be freed?"
She is being held on a $1,000.00 bond. Are you ready to post that amount?"
Vasiliy reached into his pocket, got out his wallet and peeled off ten crisp new $100.00 bills. "That is the correct amount?"
"Caplain, go get the old lady." he yelled over to a young man who tried to look like he was reading the paper, but whose astonished look on his face said he was watching the fantasy that was going on in front of him.
"Sure, Sarg." He jumped up to obey the command and came back shortly, escorting the small woman.
The sergeant gave Hetty a large manila envelope, and asked her to check if her possessions were all there. She took out her things, placed them in her purse and handed the envelope back to the sergeant.
"Is that all?" she asked.
"If you wanna go with him, you're free to go. Otherwise I can call you a cab." the sergeant said.
Hetty turned to Vasiliy and asked him, "Mozhete li vy svesti menya v rossiyskoye posol'stvo, pozhaluysta?" [Can you drive me to the Russian Embassy, please?]
"Da," he replied andHetty walked away with him, and got into the car, and disappeared completely. Every search for her, even those done by OSP, came up empty. The last Ninja Warrior was no more.