Dots
Chapter 21
A/N Thanks again, all of you, for taking the time to read and leaving your review. I am aware the previous chapter ended rather abrupt. I wasn't too sure if that was the best place to stop, but it kinda happened.
It's so good to have you around and letting me know your thoughts, Janice, Skippy, Linda, Mulderette, Guest, Wotumba and Blackbear!
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NCIS Boatshed
Callen knew Eric was used to overhearing the agents of his team. Days of concentration on what was really important. Eric would manage to get the information which was really necessary to process and to decide which action should go with it. Either to advise Hetty or Granger, or him and the team.
It didn't surprise Callen to see two men he never saw before, meeting him at the door. Both armed and both ready for action.
"I'm here to see your… superiors," he said. He did not really know who to expect, gang members perhaps, but it would be more logical to see Martin Blake again.
And he did.
"Well, well, agent Callen. Such a mess you've gotten your team in, don't you think?" Blake welcomed him, nearly huffing. His large posture leaned to the nearest pole in the boatshed, and he appeared to be in complete control.
"What do you mean, I got my team into trouble?"
There was a smirk on his face, one which didn't feel genuine, but Blake would not know. Despite the fact he knew that he was smaller than Blake, with hardly any back-up, less strong and wounded right now, he still showed he could control the situation. Still, the remark came as an unwelcoming revelation. Callen remembered the words from what was it, weeks ago? 'We cannot allow your intervening, agent Callen'…
Was it really his doing that the people he considered as his family, were being kept in here? For a few seconds, he hesitated. Seconds which might seem so short, but from right behind him, there was a severe kick in his lower back which made him stumble and fall. He groaned and figured it was quite naïve to ignore the group he was dealing with.
"You were to bring us that woman. That's the deal. But then you apparently failed to do so." The other man spoke. Gerald Keene, Callen understood.
He slowly got up and breathed in before he asked "Why?"
"Let's say she's got something we need. Blake found a way to find her and a way to get what we need." He shook his head and clicked his tongue several times as in unbelief. "Then you decided to poke your nose into our business."
Blake was scowling at the agent in charge. "I should have gotten rid of you when I had the possibility."
Callen smirked his way and responded: "But you didn't, since you were stopped."
His reply wasn't too welcome and after some well-placed kicks and blows he could not defend himself from, he felt how the stitches on his body broke once again. Next to that, there would be a lot of bruises the other day.
"Now, miss Lange," Blake continued, a smirk on his face right now. "You go and call that man of yours and let him know we want that woman in here. Either she is here in only an hour from now, or we will visit her within the same period of time. And please do let her know, through your contacts, that with every minute later than we demand, one bullet will enter one of your people's body. We might start with your favorite agent in here."
It was a bit of a challenge for Callen to send the slightest shake of his head to Hetty, so that she and only she would notice. He swallowed sometimes, hoping Eric would understand he should not give away anything which would make Blake and Keene suspicious right now. "Please do as they say, Hetty. Let Eric know he's got an hour to get Macey in here."
Eric would hear his words, Callen knew. Still, he added "So, I still don't understand why you didn't want me to lead you to miss Schwartz." He purposely used her agent's name and created the distance this way. For them. And for himself, perhaps.
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Los Angeles Marina || Palawan Way
"You do this every day?" Her nearly black eyes went over Eric's face. He was focused on what he heard, like she was too.
Macey heard everything Callen said. There were mumbles from other people, which weren't really audible.
The younger man nodded with a careful shrug. "It's what we do."
From his words, she understood that he was used to situations like this.
"Well… not in the field like we are now. I mean, I am the office guy, actually. But this is my job, mostly. Listening, analyzing what we hear and what we see and advising," Eric explained.
-'what do you mean, I got my team into trouble?' She heard Callen say. And she understood that it wasn't Callen's doing. She was to blame since it was all about her past. A past she didn't remember but which made her feel ill-fated.
"What do you think," she dared to ask this man she hardly knew. "How did they find me?"
Eric adjusted his glasses, glancing at the woman. "GPS. Blake knows every new material. The trackers he uses are miniscule. Actually, Callen used one of Blake's trackers when he posed as Thomas Roberts only some weeks ago."
Her breathing hitched. "Roberts?" She paused some seconds as she gathered her thoughts. "He is a dirty cop. Worked with ehm, I guess with Blake. But I guess you know that already."
By the way he widened his eyes, Macey understood that Eric Beale and his agency had not heard this before.
"Keene mentioned it when he let me read the files, when Vanderhilt and he visited me after I was recovering," she explained. She chewed the inside of her cheeks and continued in a softer voice "If Vanderhilt hadn't been around, I guess this all wouldn't have happened."
The thought itself sickened her. She would not have been around, nor would these people she hardly knew, be endangered by this whole situation. She wondered how she'd ever face them again.
Before Eric could ask what she meant, there were more moans and groans reaching their ears. "This shouldn't happen, should it? What are they doing?"
"He's buying time. Callen did things like this before and I think it's insane. I bet he's just buying time so the back-up team can get closer… They're beating him up and he lets it happen."
Eric shook his head with his own words and thoughts, but he didn't watch her reaction. He simply tried to estimate the time the back-up team would need to arrive and understood they'd be late. "Listen… I've got a couple of flashbangs. I could go in the wet way."
"Now what exactly does that mean?" Macey wanted to know. "You were talking about a hatch."
"That's right. I'd need to swim and dive for some minutes, but hey, it would be a great surprise and we could get to reach the team, hand them weapons. It would get them out. I'm sure."
"Would we be able to keep in touch? I mean, those bionic ears we're using, will they survive water?"
Eric shrugged. "We've never tried and I can't guarantee anything about the earwigs. But I've got a spare pair of them." He reached for the glove compartment, popped it open and took a blister which he held it up. "These will stay dry for sure. There will only be a short period we cannot communicate."
"But Callen isn't communicating either. I bet he doesn't even hear what we're saying."
Eric nodded this time and explained "He eliminated the function so he doesn't listen to our babble right now. Great thing is that all where hearing and sharing is being recorded at our systems. And sometimes when things get serious and you don't want to have anyone catching any unexpected sounds, you simply can pull those earwigs out. Perhaps he did too, I don't know. Although, we still can hear him."
It was at the same moment they both heard Callen talk.
-'Please do as they say, Hetty. Let Eric know he's got an hour to get Macey in here.'
"What should we do now?" Eric nearly whispered.
She pouched her lips for half a minute, thinking. "Tell them you'll contact her and you will see to it she'll be there in twenty minutes."
"And you sure will be there," Eric now chuckled. But no way they'll expect you. Not as soon as we'll be around. And hey, the back-ups will have arrived by then as well. Let's do this!"
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The phone call from the leader the tactical team came matters of minutes ago, immediately after Hetty's.
And so Eric figured it was time by now. He checked the perimeters once again to see if there was anyone was around on the outside. All was quiet.
He got out of the car, just like Macey did, and he opened the trunk to get what he needed.
The weapons Eric now carried were loosely sealed so they'd be protected by the salt ocean water for a few minutes. Macey only carried an older knife she found in his car, and a small hand weapon.
He told her he needed about five minutes to do what he had to do: swim, dive and open the hatch from beneath the ocean surface. He trusted that none of the intruders knew about this entrance, like Callen and he both assumed.
By the time he would enter the boatshed in the unusual way, the team that Granger had arranged, should have arrived as well and like they discussed, Macey was going to guide them to the main entrance.
The minute they heard or saw the flash grenades, the back-up team should enter as well.
"I'm going to stab the tires of their cars. There will be no way anyone can escape by car that way," Macey mentioned.
All Eric was thinking was that he was admiring the way she anticipated what was to come, and he nodded. He took the package in his left hand and held up his right hand in a fist bump, which she answered rather uncertain.
"Good luck Eric. Take care."
He smiled trying to encourage her or perhaps himself even more. Then he turned around and left for the best spot to enter the boatshed only minutes after.
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NCIS Boatshed
Callen leaned against the same table Hetty was sitting at, rubbing his sore back while he felt how his shirt stuck to his body with the warmth of what could only be blood. Silently, he cursed. His inward clock told him it would take at least ten more minutes until anyone would be ready to raid and overtake the intruders. He'd be one of the insiders who still was able to fight them, and until now he didn't have a clue how the team-members were doing. Only Hetty was close, but she wasn't communicating right now. Neither was he.
There was only one of them very close. One of the other men stood closer to the entrance, and Martin Blake, Gerald Keene and two other men were near the couch, only at a short distance, but he could not overhear their soft discussion.
He glanced at the tough little woman who sat close to him, and she shook her head just once.
Henrietta Lange had decided it would be mere suicide to her agent to come into action right now. She needed her team to stay safe.
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She fixed her hair in an easy ponytail once again and managed to knit the tiny gps tracker Eric showed her, in the small elastic hairband.
It was her decision and hers only. It wouldn't matter what Eric or Callen or anyone else thought about it, although Macey Campbell was very certain they would not understand the next step she was taking.
She took out the earwig she was wearing and hid it in the palm of her hand. Then, she closed her eyes for a brief moment. The sounds of shrieking seagulls were louder than the waves splashing against the piers and the yachts nearby.
What mattered now was that she hoped to be prepared to what was to come. She breathed in several times, nodded only to herself and approached the boatshed.
Her knuckles rapped on the door twice, then she heard how someone came nearer and opened up.
Thank you for reading!
Tbc,
Knirbenrots