Not again, Deeks thought. I thought I'd made it quite clear I don't want to go there again. I barely got out alive last time. Maybe I wouldn't have got out at all if Sam and Callen hadn't turned up in the nick of time.
"Well?" Hetty raised one eyebrow and regarded him carefully. Clearly he had not slept well, which wasn't surprising, given the events of yesterday. "It would be very helpful if you would agree."
"You want me to go undercover, for an unspecified period of time, using my real identity?" He'd been Marty Deeks for so long that it was difficult to remember who Michael Martin Brandel was.
"It's the perfect opportunity for us to finally get into this circle," Hetty explained. "As Michael Brandel, you have a well-established background as a wealthy young man, who only pays token interest in the family business. And we can use that to gain access into certain areas of society that were previously closed to us."
Sam struggled with the image of the perpetually dishevelled Deeks as a playboy. And then he remembered the sleek Italian suit he'd worn at the Brandel board meeting, exquisitely tailored to fit like a glove and revised his thoughts. Maybe the kid could get away with it?
"And we can use the recent attack on you to explain why you have a bodyguard." Hetty was very pleased with this particular piece of planning, which dealt very neatly with two problems in one tidy solution. "Which will allow us to introduce Mr Hannah, without arousing anyone's suspicions."
The corners of Deeks' mouth began to curve in a smile. "Sam is going to be my bodyguard?" That was a stroke of genius on Hetty's part. "So he'll have to go everywhere I go, do everything I do?"
"Naturally. There would hardly be any point if he did not."
"Just checking." He was grinning now. "How are you on ice, Sam? I've a fancy to take up hockey again. Great way to keep fit."
"I don't do ice," Sam informed him. "I like my water in its natural state."
"You're never too old to learn, they say. But maybe in Callen's case we should make an exception? Bones don't heal so quickly once you're past your first flush of youth." He knew he was pushing it, but God knows he needed something to laugh at. Even if it did feel just a bit like cruelty to dumb animals, judging by the green tinge to the senior agent's face.
Callen decided it was time to change the subject. He was getting ever so slightly tired of these jokes about his age. Forty was the new thirty, after all. Although that sounded better than it felt. It was infuriating to sit here looking at Deeks who appeared to be glowing with rude health while he felt like death warmed over. Anyway, it was time they all stopped ignoring that damned elephant in the room. "What about Kensi?"
"What about her?" Hetty threw the ball straight back at him with a hard and accurate aim.
"Well, for starters how about where is she? We haven't heard a word from her since yesterday and I think we're entitled to know what is going on."
"I quite agree, Mr Callen. As far as I am aware, at this precise moment Miss Blye is absent without leave. Unless you can inform me otherwise?" Her gaze settled unerringly on Deeks, who had been staring at the ground since Callen had first mentioned her name.
"Don't look at me. I don't know a thing." Which was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.