Hetty Lange - NCIS: LA
"Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends" Virginia Woolf
July 2010
Emily made it a point to always know where Hetty Lange was... that is have a general idea as to her current geographic location.
There were two very specific reasons. The first was survival, Hetty is the most dangerous person she had ever met. Emily learned everything she knew about undercover espionage from the legendary operative, she had no doubt Hetty had passed on less than a fifth of her knowledge. If Hetty caught her unawares then she would never let Emily live it down.
Secondly if they were in the same area Emily would never give up the opportunity to have tea with her mentor.
The first time she'd ever met Hetty was Rome 1986, Emily was coming off the worst year of her very young life and Hetty had been assigned to her mother's staff for 6 months. She'd seen something only Hetty knew to look for in the 16 year old and decided to befriend her. It was many years later when she was coming off the Doyle assignment Hetty admitted she'd seen young Emily's potential and had watched the younger woman. Helping to provide opportunities for Emily to prove herself, made sure her name was whispered to the right people at the right time. Letting the younger woman choose her own path, but watching and protecting where she could.
Emily knew she wasn't the first nor the last person Hetty had done this for. There was a network all around the world of men and women who would kill and die for Hetty Lange.
Emily was proud to call herself one of them.
After they had finally tracked down Billy Flynn and rescued Elly Spicer, Hotch gave them a few hours while he finished clearing up some bureaucratic red tape, she slipped away from the station and down to the condemned building rumour told her the NCIS Special Projects unit worked out of.
Noting a tiny blindspot in the cameras she slipped through and sat against the outside wall at precisely the right angle for her feet to be picked up by two seperate camera's. Hopefully she'd managed to get her left foot sticking out the bottom right hand corner of one and her right foot sticking out the bottom left hand corner of another.
It took longer than anticipated before her personal burn phone rang.
"Agent Prentiss, I would greatly appreciate you not sending my security staff into fits."
"NCIS is a little slow Hetty" Emily smirked "I've been waiting nearly 30 minutes..."
"I'll give you slow young lady. The door's open..." the line went dead and Emily hauled herself up and round to the condemned sign. Taking a moment to admire the Charger parked there she wandered through the front door and down the hall.
Interestingly she got to the main bullpen before anyone questioned her presence. It really was true that if you walked like you belonged no one would question you.
"Can I help you?" a man, about her age, blue eyes short cropped hair asked.
"No thanks Callen." he blinked in confusion... who was she and how did she know his name.
Callen was a very good undercover operative... she was better. She'd pegged him as undercover the first time their paths crossed over 15 years earlier in Cairo. The CIA had loaned her to NATO CTU, she and one of their rookies were playing lost blond backpacker while tracking uranium shipments through the city.
It had taken years for her hair to recover from the peroxide.
"You have a fantastic pair of breasts... use them right and all anyone will remember is blond hair and cleavage"
Emily had been gobsmacked by that particular piece of advice coming from Hetty but damn if the woman wasn't right. No one looked at her face when there was platinum blond hair and a pair of C cups to ogle.
Standing waiting for her was the woman herself... her diminutive stature filling the entire room.
"Really Emily... must you always make my security look bad?" Hetty glared.
"You'd like me less if I didn't" Emily grinned.
"This is true" Hetty looked her up and down "The Bureau has been good to you... tea?"
In the background Callen, Sam and Kensi watched the two women chatter away, until recognition hit Sam like a freight train.
"Why is a dead weapons dealer having tea with Hetty?"
"Emily... Emily..." Callen muttered under his breath still trying to connect the dots "Wait a second... weapons dealer?" he frowned at Sam.
"Yeah, Lauren something worked with Valhalla. They were both arrested 6 years back... she died in transit from Tuscany to Rome." Sam clarified.
"Really boys?" Kensi wanted to smack them in the back of the head "Dead weapons dealer that knows who Callen is and Hetty has tea with... probably one of the hundreds of agents Hetty has trained over the years."
