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The Price of a Life

Chapter 4

Sam used the telephoto lens on his camera to get a closer view of the single storey building occupied by Crane Cleaning Services. From the plans downloaded by Eric he knew that there was one main entrance, half a dozen offices, a small kitchen, washrooms and a storage area for the cleaning supplies. The only other point of entry was through a loading dock at the rear. His attention was drawn to the parking lot at the side of the building which was filled with vans identical to the one they suspected had been used to transport Callen.

He checked his watch. It had been over four hours since he had seen his partner bound, bleeding and at the mercy of a man who wanted him dead. He had to believe that someone in that building had information that would lead them to Callen and he didn't care what methods he had to use to extract it. He activated his comlink. "Talk to me, Eric."

"The man you're looking for is Nick Wozniak. I've sent his picture to your phone."

Sam pulled out his phone and pressed the message icon. The face of a man in his mid-twenties with short brown hair, hazel eyes and non-descript features appeared on the screen. "What do we know about him?"

"Not much except that he's a Russian national who's only been in the US for six months."

Eric's voice was higher pitched than normal, a sure sign that he was feeling as frustrated as the rest of the team. For the second time that day they would have to make decisions with insufficient information. He gripped the steering wheel while he fought the urge to punch his fist through a window. It was only his years of training that kept him calm enough to ask the necessary questions. "Where's Wozniak now?"

"According to Crane's records he's in the building," Eric reported.

Sam pulled out his gun, checked the clip and shoved it back into the waistband of his trousers. "I'm going in."

"Not yet, Mr. Hanna." Hetty joined the conversation, her tone softer and lacking its usual confidence. "There has been a worrying development so I have sent backup. Agent Renko and Mr. Deeks will be with you shortly."

"I don't need backup," Sam growled. "G's life's on the line and we've wasted enough time already." To hell with protocol and procedures! All that mattered was finding Callen.

"Sam, listen to me. The undercover detective, the one Deeks was supposed to interrogate, was killed last night in an automobile accident."

"That's LAPD's problem." Sam knew he was being callous and didn't care.

"Has it occurred to you that this might be a trap?" Hetty asked. "Trask is clever and could easily have planted this lead just like he did in order to capture Mr. Callen. And we have the potential involvement of the Russians who can be ruthless bastards."

"I've walked into worse situations than this, Hetty. I know how to take care of myself."

"Yes, I am aware of that. However, on this occasion you will wait for your backup to arrive. And don't even think about arguing with me, Mr. Hanna. I will not jeopardize the life of one agent in the hope of saving another." There was an unfamiliar note of pleading in Hetty's voice.

"G's my partner and he's running out of time. Come on, you know I'm right." Usually Sam would be the last person to challenge the authority of his operations manager but this wasn't a normal situation.

"I understand how you feel. Mr. Callen is important to all of us but walking into an ambush won't help him."

Sam closed his hands into tight fists, the urge to punch something becoming almost uncontrollable. "Fifteen minutes," he said. "If they're not here by then I'm going in alone."

Hetty gave a soft sigh. "They will be there."

Sam was just about to cut the connection when he heard Hetty telling Eric to make sure that Deeks and Renko had green lights all the way to his location. With a grim smile he settled down to wait.

NCISLA

His shoulder felt like it was on fire. Callen tried to squirm away from the fingers that were roughly probing the bullet wound. Almost immediately he collided with the wall and the breath was forced from his lungs. He kept his eyes tightly closed while he desperately sought to recover his equilibrium.

"Hold him still." Trask sounded impatient. "And get the bleeding stopped. I don't want him dying until I'm ready."

Hands gripped his arms, pushing him down so that he was lying on his side. The remnants of his t-shirt were ripped away and he felt cold air brush across his overheated skin. There was pressure on the entry and exit wounds causing pain and nausea but his efforts to curl up to protect his body from further injury were ruthlessly thwarted. Bile filled his mouth. He turned his head, retching and coughing up the foul tasting liquid.

It wasn't in his nature to submit so he jerked feebly against their hands, trying to loosen their grip until a cloth smelling strongly of antiseptic touched the open wound. Callen cried out in agony before losing his battle to stay awake.

His captor's voice drew him back from the comfortable darkness to an awareness of throbbing pain. He raised his head, squinting until his vision cleared. Trask was using his cell phone and speaking fluent Russian with an accent that Callen recognized.

His surroundings had changed which suggested that he had been unconscious for some time. They had moved him from his prison to a large open area, sitting him in a chair where he was pinned in place by Hulk's hand on his uninjured shoulder. He turned his head slowly to the left. His shoulder and upper arm were swathed with bandages. Nothing had been done to dull the pain. He felt light headed and dizzy from exhaustion and blood loss. Trask was making good on his promise to see him suffer.

"This is personal." Those words were the key. He didn't recognize either the name or the man, which didn't necessarily mean much. He'd made a lot of enemies during his career with various law enforcement agencies. Some of those men had stayed in the shadows; anonymous threats to the safety of innocent civilians and to those who fought to keep them safe.

Nobody was paying attention to him so he took time to study what was going on around him. Trask had clearly decided to take no more chances. A nylon zip tie had been used to secure his wrists behind his back. The strain on his painful ribs and shoulder added to his misery. He tested the strength of the restraint, finding it more than adequate to control him in his weakened condition. His legs were free but the pulses of pain radiating down his left leg from his knee were enough to convince him that standing without help wasn't an option.

He recognized the building from his previous surveillance as the warehouse at the private airfield where he had been captured. Callen wondered why Trask would take the risk of keeping him in the same location. Most terrorists knew to move their prisoners every couple of days and he had been held here, so far as he could tell, for at least four days. The only variation had been the short trip to another location to shoot the footage sent to NCIS.

His chair had been placed out of the direct line of sight of any windows and at least twenty-five feet from the large roller shutter doors. A black Mercedes SLK and two SUVs were parked just inside the warehouse. The bulk of the building was empty, although three of Trask's men sat at a metal table cleaning their guns and talking softly. Callen strained to hear, catching a few words. Their accents were of mixed eastern European origin. It was frustrating to know that there were weapons and transport close at hand and that he couldn't reach them.

He straightened up as much as his injuries, and the weight of Hulk's hand, allowed. Trask turned to face him, finished speaking on his phone and strolled over.

"You're a long way from home," Callen said in flawless Russian, mimicking Trask's northern dialect. "Novgorod?"

"Among many other places." Trask pulled over another chair. "I was told you had a gift for languages."

Callen kept his breaths shallow, although it wasn't helping much. Sweat beaded his forehead and he was finding is increasingly difficult to control the shaking of tired, overstressed muscles. His hands were cold and losing all feeling due to the tightness of the ties around his wrists. "Why is this personal?"

"Do you have a brother, Agent Callen?" Trask's voice was as cold as his eyes.

"No."

"Perhaps a sister."

"No." The lie came easily to him.

Trask studied him carefully. "According to your file you had a sister. How did you feel when you found out she was dead?"

"She died a long time ago." He gave the answer automatically while trying to process the volume of information Trask had about him. Only a handful of people knew about Amy, and he would trust any of them with his life. No, that wasn't right; Keelson had known. Had he sold that knowledge?

"Pay attention, Agent Callen," Trask said sharply. "I was faced with a dilemma, but a man with no living family has to form bonds somewhere. You have worked with your partner, Agent Hanna, for over three years. In that time you have faced death together. You have become brothers in arms."

Callen didn't like where this was going. "I've had a lot of partners. Sam and I work together and we're friends, nothing more."

Trask nodded to Hulk. The backhanded blow to his mouth knocked Callen from the chair. He lay on the dusty floor, his cheek pressed against the concrete, unable to move. Black spots danced in front of his eyes, clouding his vision and his heart rate increased, along with the speed of his breathing. It was tempting to succumb to the darkness again.

"I don't like being lied to," Trask said.

A firm grip on both arms pulled Callen up and returned him to the chair. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting blood. "What do you want?" he asked.

"You have a resourceful team. They picked up my trail sooner than I expected, but don't get your hopes up. The trail they are following will not lead them here. Five minutes ago Agent Hanna entered one of my businesses. It is unlikely that he will leave it alive."

"No!" Callen strained against his bonds and Hulk's firm grip. "If you're going to kill me get on with it, but leave my partner alone."

"I want you to know what it's like to lose someone close to you. If you still had family it would have been easier."

"Why?" Callen's vision was blurring again. He realized that he only remained on the chair because he was being held in place. There was nothing he could do to help Sam except to try and convince Trask to change his plan. Even that was almost beyond him as speech became more difficult. A cold sweat formed on his body, accompanied by a feeling of vertigo.

"Six years ago, outside Zagreb, you killed my brother."

"I've never been to Zagreb," he said wearily. It was impossible to keep his head up even though he wanted to look Trask in the eye and convince him that he was telling the truth. He forced out the words he needed to say. "Someone has lied to you."

He knew now what had been kept from him. Trask had been fed information through a friend and not an enemy. He hadn't been following a lead; he'd been hung out as bait and had never stood a chance. This so called 'friend' realized when they planted the false information in his file that it would also be a death sentence for his partner.

Tbc

Caroline

October 2012