Come What May

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the shows.
A/N: Thanks to ivanacindy, sassyzazzi, TMVH50, and JONI for the reviews.

Chapter 10

Pride walked through the arched doorway to see empty desks. He locked his gun away in the filing cabinet and then followed the sound of laughter to the kitchen.

"So there he is, starin' intently down the barrel of his rifle." LaSalle leaned back in his chair, holding an imaginary gun to his eye. He gave a cheeky grin to the group who were all howling, that is, except for Callen who was sullenly moping in his chair.

Sonja winked at Dwayne from where she was leaning against the kitchen island. Deeks was laughing so hard he was resting his forehead directly on the table top. Patton's hands were covering his face but they didn't block the snorts coming out of him. Even Loretta and Sebastian were intently listening from the video chat set up on the laptop perched on the sideboard.

"Ah could see his intended target was a long ways off on the next hilltop. Ah assumed this ol' boy was going for a shot in the side."

"It was Sam and I had been stalking him for three hours!" Callen ground out which prompted Deeks to pound on the table with his fist as he gasped for air.

"Question," Sebastian raised his hand in the air. "Who's Sam?"

"He's…Cal…len's…" Deeks raised his head and started to explain but could only get out one syllable in between breaths.

Callen rolled his eyes. "He's my partner but before that he was this super SEAL. Very adapted to the jungle and forest environments." He pierced LaSalle with a hot glare. "And I finally had him in my sights, not the other way around."

"So anyway," Chris continued as if he'd never been interrupted. "There's this guy, sittin' pretty under this bush, readyin' to shoot some poor unsuspectin' soul."

A deep grunt was the only response Callen deigned to give to that description of Sam.

"An' I just couldn't let it happen."

"Do you realize" Callen broke in "I mapped out Sam's movements based on the last five exercises. I ran the numbers to find his most probably strategy. I picked that spot and staked it out for a full hour before he finally slid into my sightline."

"Poor Sam." Percy moaned, smirking at Pride as she wound Callen up even more.

"Poor Sam?!" Callen gaped. "Do you know how many times he shot me in between the gear's padding? Every. Single. Time. I had bruises!"

"Total flukes. Those guns don't have that much accuracy." LaSalle shook his head.

Percy leaned forward and stage-whispered to Chris, "Says the man who has shot Pride in the butt twice."

LaSalle's face lit up with a grin. "Modified equipment can be an ass..et."

"Alright, that's it." Pride stepped closer to the table and waved his hands in the air before the conversation went further off-topic. His interference was met with groans and booing but his grimace had a grin sneaking behind it. "Fun's over. Let's try and focus on the case." Everyone had the decency to look a bit chagrined, except Callen who was sighing in relief. LaSalle, the rascal, winked at his boss.

"I like it here. Normally it's Sam and Callen picking on me." Deeks whispered to Percy as they were the last to file out of the kitchen. Pride heard Sonja's snicker behind him and just shook his head. Sebastian and Loretta were relocated to the lower screen and Patton was trying to take control of the screen so he could share his information first but Sebastian was madly typing to keep his reports in front.

"Rock, paper, scissors!" LaSalle yelled over the disagreement and the two held out their fists. Two out of three gave Sebastian the overall win and he clicked away while Patton sniffed and crossed his arms.

"Samuel has cancer." Sebastian announced. "I ran the blood samples found at the scene and found chemo drugs."

Deeks nodded. "That explains why he agreed to start again. He was really happy to quit originally; he wasn't enjoying the illegal aspects. And by that I mean interacting with gangs and thugs." He leaned back and looked at Callen. "Messed up his suits." Callen smirked in response.

"My turn." Patton spun to face the group. "Johnny was in town."

Deeks was shocked. "No. He wasn't there. He stayed back to work with the crews!"

Patton shook his head. "He took a private jet that landed an hour after you."

"Sebastian," Pride looked at the screen, "could you-"

"Already ahead of you." Loretta looked on as Sebastian typed away. The group was quiet as his eyes were glued to a monitor. "The truck was wiped down but the techs found prints under the outside door handle. It's a partial but…the pieces we have are a match to Johnny."

Callen squinted at the screen. "It was Johnny that set this game up and then he tries to cut out his partners? For what," he glanced at Deeks whose face was scrunched up in concentration "a few thousand dollars?"

"The cut was supposed to be around a hundred thousand each."

"One hundred, twelve thousand and four hundred dollars." Patton amended. All eyes turned to him.

"How did you know that?" Percy asked.

"I cracked the laptop." Patton leaned back and grinned. "It's also how I know he took the plane. I have access to all the accounts associated with this deal through it."

"Including all the money that came in?" Deeks clumsily spun to face Patton.

"The launderers, the gangs, everyone. Even your fake account."

"Whoa." Sonja held her hands out. "That's a lot of cash."

"Dirty cash." Callen added. He squinted at Deeks. "There's a lot of groups implicated by these accounts."

Deeks wrinkled his nose and nodded. "The Treasury is after two of the launderers that I know of."

"ATF would love to get their hands on some that are trying to clean their money."

"DEA, FBI, probably local PD's, the list is long." Pride guessed. "NCIS doesn't have jurisdiction over most of them."

"Except for one." Callen stated and then turned to eye Deeks, "Los Robos, they came up while you and Samuel were talking at the airport before you left."

Deeks slowly nodded. "They were looking to clean. I'm not familiar with them other than they're a group out of southern California."

Callen swallowed. "NCIS has a history with them. Patton, can you check if any accounts are under Marco Ramirez?"

Patton tapped away and filtered through the laptop's drive. "There's one for an 'MRam LRob'. I have the routing numbers, I could do some digging."

"I'd appreciate it." Callen nodded his thanks.

Percy cleared her throat. "We found some things too." She tipped her head towards Deeks who shot her a wink. A few taps and their accomplishment showed on the screen.

"We went through everyone involved and now have a list of all the groups."

Deeks worked his wheels to face the screen again. "If we include everyone on both sides, there are 22 organizations. Five were battling to clean the money of the other seventeen. Most of the seventeen have a presence in California but a few are located on the east coast. As far as we can tell, none have local representatives in New Orleans. They all seem to be localized."

Pride tapped a finger against his folded arms. "How many have active investigations into their operations?"

"We found federal alerts for 15 of them." Percy tapped a key. "We didn't check local PD's and we didn't know about Los Robos to NCIS connection."

Callen stepped forward, "Can I make a suggestion, Pride, even though this is your house?" At Dwayne's nod, Callen continued. "Aside from Los Robos, I don't think we have the resources to deal with this information. I say we pass on what we have to the different agencies and move their investigations forward."

His suggestion was met with nods. Pride spoke next, "How about this, Patton, you get on packaging up the data so it can be sent off. Start with the ones Percy has marked off. There's fifteen and five of us, let's each take three and contact the lead agents to prep them for the data transfers. Sebastian, pick up where Patton left off and see if you can track Johnny and Samuel any further."

With no objections, the team scattered to complete their tasks.