The team set about their assigned tasks, trying as best they could to focus on the positive: Eric was alive and would be okay. They all knew, without saying, that the person or persons responsible would be tracked down and made to pay for what they had done to Kensi and Eric.
At the hospital, Hetty quickly found Eric's room and his friend Chris. "How is he doing?" Hetty asked, standing by Eric's bedside, one hand on his arm and her other hand touching the crown of his head in a motion that struck Chris as being very maternal, especially given that he had no idea who this mysterious woman was. "He was critical until the middle of the night but he was upgraded to stable when he began breathing on his own and they could take the tube out. He had internal bleeding, which took, like, six hours of surgery to fix. He has a collapsed lung, five broken ribs, a grade 3 concussion, sprained knee, dislocated shoulder, a badly broken arm, and cuts and bruises all over. Other than that, he's dandy." Chris replied warily. He did not trust this woman who seemed to know his longtime best friend so well.
Hetty prompted, "And when he woke up this morning…?"
"He woke up twice. The first time, he was able to nod and stuff when the doctor and I explained what had happened and where he was. The doctor had him do some easy stuff, like move his eyes and hands and feet before Eric nodded off. I don't think he was up to talking...Then he woke up a bit later and motioned for something to write with, which is how I got…" Chris trailed off; staring at the friend he had had since they shared a literature class freshman year of college. He had never seen Eric, or anyone he was close to, look like this. He and Eric's other close friends had been at the hospital in shifts for as long as visiting hours allowed since they had called area ERs in concern, not having heard from Eric in days. "So who are you? I know you aren't family and he works for himself so…?"
Hetty pulled out her NCIS badge and credentials and answered the concerned, bone-tired young man as best she could. "I am the operations manager for an office of agents and others working for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Eric works for me. For us. In the course of our initial investigation, we have determined the accident Eric was in was planned. One of my agents will be with Eric at all times until said perpetrator is identified and apprehended." Chris looked stunned. He looked from Hetty to Eric and back again. "What? He's never said anything. We all think…thought Eric was self-employed. I don't understand what this means."
Hetty had seen many people go through this scenario: they think their loved one has a normal, risk-free life, only to find out otherwise in a terrible situation that leaves more questions than any agent can answer. "The people who work in our office are not permitted to share their true identity with strangers nor their true occupation with those they love and trust. It is for the safety of both my agents and support team and their family that nobody knows. Somebody clearly found out about the work Eric does for NCIS and this is the result. I know this is hard but other than the fact Eric is not an agent, I can tell you nothing else. And Eric won't either so please spare him the trouble of dodging questions when he wakes up again." The look Hetty gave drove her point and her instructions home.
Soon, an agent came to the room and greeted Hetty. She introduced him to Chris and, after saying goodbye to a deeply sleeping Eric, took her leave to return to ops for updates and status reports.
Meanwhile at ops, Kensi and Deeks were in the bullpen, sifting through Eric's life. They hated the invasion of privacy of one of their own but it had to be done. They looked at his Facebook wall and messages, doing background searches on friends. They checked his credit and bank statements for any unusual balances or cash withdrawals or deposits. They even looked at old case files where the suspect may have seen Eric on the video conference screen in the boatshed. The agent and detective came up blank at every turn.
They decided to take a quick coffee break to regroup their thoughts and come up with more scenarios for the accident; why else it may have happened other than being connected to Kensi's attack. Kensi looked other to find her partner staring into space. "Deeks? What are you thinking?" she asked. Deeks took a moment before saying, still not looking at his partner, "I yelled at him. Told him he screwed up; told him he wasn't really one of us. Now this…I mean, he doesn't even have anyone and I said he wasn't one of us…" he looked down at his desk, shaking his head.
Kensi thought for a moment. She was shocked Deeks had said something like that, even though he must have been worried about her, just as she had been worried about him when he was shot. "Deeks." He turned and looked at her, clearly upset. "This is not your fault and Eric knows you didn't mean it. When you see him, you can tell him yourself. And he knows he belongs here and that we all love him, even though we never say it. We all care about each other. That's why this is so hard." Deeks thought for a moment and nodded. She was right. The only thing they could do was follow every lead and find the son of a bitch that was attacking their team before anybody else was targeted.
At that moment, Sam and Callen came back. They had spent hours at the bar and had questioned the bartenders and got credit card receipts to track down who had been in the bar when Kensi was there. Surveillance video would have been ideal, but like most bars, the Poplar was struggling in the economy and the 'video cameras' were only for show. The only one that worked was above the cash register, which did the agents no good.
"You guys find anything?" Sam inquired. "Nothing" was the frustrated reply. "You?" Callen said as Sam went to refill his coffee, "We sent some credit card receipts to Nell. She's running them down. No video and nobody saw anything, though they do remember Kensi leaving with a guy, the bartender's descriptions don't match. So that's pretty damn useless." Callen was clearly frustrated by the lack of progress. He was also perturbed because he knew in his gut that this was not over. That the perp may have covered his tracks well enough that he might get to another one of the team before he was caught. Callen just hoped the bastard came for him. Sam had kids and a wife that were vulnerable civilians, and Nell was not a trained agent. Kensi had already been attacked and Deeks had been shot enough for one year. Callen had no family to worry over him. Then again, Eric evidently didn't either… Callen shook his head and looked his team. "I guess this just leaves…" "Nell" they all finished at once.
As the team had been chasing their own leads, Nell had been furiously typing and running every kind of search she could think of in as many combinations she could think of, hoping the work would stave off the tears she knew were going to come. She was actually shocked she had gone this long and not cried for her techie, though her cheeks were bright red and she was sniffling a lot with the effort of holding her emotions back.
The two were close. They shared in the frustration of sending their friends and agents out into the field, often with incomplete or old information, knowing that they were the lifeline that could make or break an op in the field. They quietly worried about their agents and breathed a sigh of relief when the danger had passed. The agents never knew half the work the two put in to ensuring their safety and the success of a mission. Nell had outlasted all other analysts and Eric had outlasted all other technical operators by a long shot. No analyst was grounded enough and no computer geek skilled enough for Hetty's high standards. Neither could believe Eric had done his job alone before Nell and neither wanted him to do it alone again. Even now, in her concern for Eric and anxiety over the rest of the team's safety, what Nell most wanted was Eric to be in ops with her, working beside her, helping her as she helped him. They were a team and a great one at that. And not having her teammate nearly put Nell past the edge of sanity, as the team found out when they entered the humming ops room.
"Well? What did you find? Need me to background a suspect?" Nell said rapidly, still typing so hard Deeks wondered how she hadn't broken the keyboard. "Nothing yet. Though Hetty has an agent with Eric and says he'll be okay but he's pretty well hurt." Sam answered. Nell spun around in her chair and fixed the four agents with a steady glare. "Nothing? You must be joking. How long have you been out? Did you take a surf break?" she pointed that last accusation at Deeks who stepped back in surprise before answering in the negative.
"How about you tell us what you've got." Callen said, hoping to pacify Nell quickly. Nell began to throw things up on the big screen. "I tracked down the police report for the theft of the truck. Pretty straightforward, no forensics report was submitted-the surveillance tape was gritty but showed the white male suspect was wearing gloves. Simple slim jim and hotwire job. The truck stayed out of traffic cams after about three minutes so Kaleidoscope was unable to locate it until this." Nell pulled up a video of an alley. The angle was bad and the distance did not allow for much zoom but it showed the truck in the alley, now without license plates, and two men. One resembled the man who stole the truck and the other person appeared to be a man, homeless judging from the clothes and unkempt look.
"Looks like a payoff." Callen said, studying the video as something was passed from the thief to the second man. Nell nodded. "And there's this." Nell pulled up a stoplight camera of the intersection where Eric's accident was and showed the car that caused traffic to stop. There was no blockage in the road to make the car stop when it did, which added to the proof that the accident was really an attack. When Nell zoomed in to the driver, the man was wearing a hat, pulled low over his face, and was looking to the side, checking the mirror to watch the accident happen, which further obscured his face. "Knows what he's doing. Knew we would check the footage from the accident. He's hiding on purpose to remove facial recognition as a tool. Not making this easy for us." Sam sighed while shaking his head.
Looking at Kensi, Nell quietly said, "I found footage of what happened to you Saturday morning. Quality's way off but it's something. Can I play it?" Kensi stiffened and then nodded. Her teammates were looking at her with concern and Deeks moved closer to her side as Nell started the footage. The team watched as a man pulled Kensi into the alley and pressed her to the outside wall of the bar. They watched as Kensi's arms pushed against him and her knee tried to get high enough to deliver a blow to his crotch. The team was silent as they watched the unknown man reach his hand up Kenis's dress and saw him toss something on the ground. Her panties.
Deeks stole a glance at Kensi and saw her hands clenched, back ramrod straight as she worked to keep her breathing steady. "Don't you dare ask if I'm okay." Kensi said so only Deeks could hear. So Deeks touched her hand before turning back to the screen where the man was pawing Kensi all over her body. Kensi managed to get her left hand to her clutch, which was held in her right hand. She worked at the latch and pulled out a small object and touched it to her assailant. He immediately jumped back and then slapped Kensi so hard she fell to the ground, where she stayed as he ran off away from the camera.
"You tased him? A little soft don't you think?" Sam asked Kensi. Callen also looked at her with a raised brow. "I would have shot him but my gun doesn't fit in that purse. It's the only one I have that matches that dress!" Kensi said indignantly. "Right. The point is you got away." Deeks said suddenly and stiffly, seeing for the first time the situation his partner had been in before calling Eric.
Nell put all the images they had of the mystery man up on the screen and said, "Looks like the same guy to me. Problem is there is not enough goods quality screen grabs of consistent angles to use facial so I'm using a program to clean the images and make the pixels match. I can then use another program to fill in the blank facial areas using the bone structure we have. It may only be an approximate image but we can use it." She then pulled up photos of all the men who had credit card receipts from the bar. "Anybody look familiar?" Kensi looked at the photos, eyes narrowed and forehead wrinkled. "I…I just can't remember any of it…I-" "It's okay Kens. Like Deeks said, you got away. We can break down all their doors if we have to." Call said.
There was a dinging sound from Nell's computer and she eagerly said, "The first facial program is done. Here we go. How about now?" The team studied the image of the man with black hair and dark eyes. Suddenly, Nell gasped. The team looked at her as she quickly put the new photo beside one of the images from the bar receipts and said, hardly breathing, "Is it just me or is this the same person?" Callen stepped forward, squinting at the screen. "Nice work! It is the same guy. Let's go."
As the team turned to leave, they were caught off guard as Nell gasped sharply then said from behind them, "I saw him at my house last night and again this morning a few corners away…I'm next."