LA
FIVE YEARS AGO
"Suspect is moving east on Main Street," says Dimitri on the comm link, "he's armed and dangerous, I repeat, do not engage."
The team moved as a unit, following the suspect through the backyards of the LA suburbs. Some people looked out of the windows, but the agents signalled for them to retreat into their homes. They were used to gang activity in the area, so they knew better.
They called the children in, and shut the doors.
They were chasing a hit killer, who had been raping and killing Latino women in three different neighbourhoods in greater LA area. The community was in panic, and after the third killing the police called in the FBI, who assigned the BAU team to it.
They tracked it down to a women traffic ring that was working in LA, with connections in San Francisco and Mexico, connected to a drug cartel on the border with Mexico. They were trafficking women onto US soil, using them as prostitutes, and sometimes selling them to other pimps for more prestige or drugs.
Whenever one of these ladies tried to escape, they were found literally butchered, cut into pieces.
The BAU team had been able to track it down to the ring, and transmitted the drug cartel information to DEA and Vice. Now, their main concern is to catch the bastard who had been using a kitchen cleaver to kill the runaway women.
They tracked the suspect to the end of the road, where an old dilapidated house was. Anita with hand signs indicated that the agents should spread out, Joy and Eric went around the house towards the back door, Norman and Lorraine approached the front door slowly.
They entered slowly, checking every room for their suspect, "are you sure he's here, Leo?" whispers Anita in her comm link, and hears the voice of the tech, "we were tracking him with infrared cameras, he's further down the house, to the left."
Anita advanced with Norman and Lorraine covering her six, they were checking slowly each room.
Meanwhile, Eric and Joy check the windows on the back, and approach the backdoor. Joy prepares to enter the house, but she is stopped by Eric, "wisdom before beauty," she smiles and lets him enter first, they make a sweep of the room, it is a kitchen, with blackened walls, showing signs that a kitchen fire caused this house to be abandoned. Eric opens a door, which he finds out is of the kitchen cupboard; he turns to Joy, "nothing here," and they keep advancing towards the other room. They enter a corridor, check both sides and keep advancing, Eric in the front and Joy covering his six.
They enter a room, that is completely dark, and they blink owlishly, trying to adjust to the darkness. Joy hears a noise to the right, and sees a faint shadow and points her gun and her torch towards it, "FBI, FREEZE!" the shadow advances towards her and she shoots once, but it keeps advancing, and she sees a faint reflection of her torch's light on the blade of the cleaver on his hand and gets ready to shoot him again, but two shots are heard before she pulls the trigger. There is noise as the body of the killer falls on the floor with a thud at their feet, the cleaver still in his hand.
The other agents rush to the room, and point their lights towards the dark room, and see Eric and Joy standing over the killer's dead body, his chest with three bullet holes bleeding profusely.
"Why didn't he stop? I didn't miss my shot," asks Joy to no one. Anita checks his neck, and verifies that he is indeed dead. She looks up at Joy, and she's looking at the dead man, and she can see despair in her face.
"He didn't want to live in prison, so he took the easy way out," says Eric, standing by the dead man. He puts his hand on her shoulder, squeezes in support for a bit, and leaves.
NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS
The agents are back to the office, typing their reports, and talking in low voices about their case. Agent Korcevic comes out of his office, "Buchanan, my office, now."
She looks at the other agents, sighs, locks her computer and goes to Dimitri's office.
Leo rolls on his chair closer to Norm and Eric, "Do you think he's going to chew her out?"
Eric looks cross at Leo, and returns to his report, "Why would he? She didn't do anything wrong."
Leo shrugs, "She hesitated, man, she should have shot the man again, she screwed up."
Eric looks at Leo, "She gave him a kill shot, she believed that should have been enough, it is not her fault that he kept coming."
"It still could have ended badly, for both of you," says Norman.
Eric looks towards the glass walls of Dimitri's office, and sees him talking to Joy, "But it didn't."
In Dimitri's office, the two agents talk.
"I would like to hear what happened out there," says Dimitri.
"I saw the suspect advancing towards us, gave him fair warning, he didn't stop, I shot him, it is all in my report, sir."
"I read the report," says Dimitry, "what I want to know is why you hesitated?"
"I didn't hesitate sir," she says carefully, "I shot him to incapacitate him."
"And yet your field partner had to finish the job, as he didn't stop with your first shot," says Dimitri.
"I didn't shoot to kill him, just to incapacitate him," Dimitri shakes his head, "next time," he approaches her, "if you have to choose between incapacitating a scumbag or putting your partner's life in danger," he leans and speaks close to her face, "shoot to kill."
She gulps, but doesn't back down, "I wasn't aware that we were judge and executioners now, sir," he shakes his head, "in this job, we are not hunting humans anymore, Buchanan," he points to his desk, where a pile of new cases were waiting to be distributed and assigned to the team, "these people, these creatures, they left all vestige of decency and human compassion behind, and act and kill like animals, just to enjoy the pain and suffering in other human beings," he looks at her seriously, "so like animals, sometimes they have to be put out of their misery, and it is our job to ensure that they don't hurt anyone anymore."
He looks at the young agent, and sees that his speech made effect, he turns to his desk, "Dismissed."
She silently glides out of his office, and he opens the first file on his incoming tray.
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