Dots

Chapter 25

Thank you, Skippy, Mulderette, JaniceS, LindaWiggington, wotumba, F4llon, Blackbear53, for leaving your reviews. As ever, your kind words are very welcome! Now, this story is nearly coming to an end, there won't be another 25 chapters coming up! Will keep you posted...

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

Macey agreed, but she still didn't have a clue to what it was exactly. She agreed, simply because she needed to delay her group. She was pretty sure the NCIS team was able to follow, but it was impossible to find out how close they'd be. So, she nodded again, but did not comment. Not yet.

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

NCIS main office || Ops center

Her red hair swirled around her head. "It's still so faint. There's too much noise." She now looked up at the other small woman, who had taken a seat on the chair next to hers. "It's because of the wind, the motor, and probably also because there's a lot of cloth between the transmitter and his voice. I really can't make too much of it right now."
She reached forward to insert another plug in the computer and explained "Perhaps the computer can descript better like this. Though we'd have to wait and see, of course."

"Oh, but I see, Miss Jones. I fully understand you need to do this. Now you keep concentrating on those dots on your screen, dear girl. Keep watching. Keep informing your co-workers too. No need to tell you I demand to receive the same information, of course."
The senior woman pursed her lips, rose from the desk-chair and was about to open the sliding doors of the Ops center. She decided to take her own laptop once again and re-study whatever it was she could find. Perhaps there was more in the files than she had thought of before.

"Hetty?" Nell asked, her voice now small. "We are sure about this Macey's actions, aren't we? I mean… what if…" She didn't really finish her sentence, but bit her lower lip only shortly.

Hetty pressed the small button next to the small desk which was placed close to it. She turned to her youngest team member and paused a beat before she answered. "Well, Miss Jones. I happen to have spent only a few short hours with her. And I tend to call myself quite a good judge of character. From what I have seen, I do trust her. And that isn't the only thing I have witnessed, because I saw how Mr. Callen reacted to her as well. So, I would say there are no doubts at all."

Nell nodded, and felt uncomfortable now the legendary handler stared at her only a second too long, in her opinion.
"I can practically read the question mark on your lovely face, Miss Jones. Please, no hesitations. Feel free to express your thoughts, whatever they may be."

The blush crept from her neck all the way up, and she felt it but Nell didn't mind any longer. "Well, we've been wrong before. With… well, you know… Joelle and how she managed to hide her real intentions? Not only with Callen. She fooled us all. Like Tracy Kelly fooled him before. And you know, I… well, I don't want to think of how… what it would do to, to him."

It was only three big steps from the doors to where the young analyst stood, and the petite operations manager rested her small hand on the forearm of the other woman. "Thank you, Miss Jones. It warms me to see how you care for all your team members. Rest assured I will watch agent Schwartz' steps carefully as well."

"Agent Schwartz or Macey Campbell?" Nell now dared to ask. She watched how her boss now nodded several times as she pondered over her reply.
"Macey Campbell. I sincerely believe she is Miss Campbell right now. Deep down, there's a bit, or perhaps enough, left of the former agent. She's keen enough, though. Now, we do have to hope there's enough left of the skills and the training she had, don't we?"
With those words, Hetty turned and slowly went down the stairs, sat down behind her antique desk and gazed at the empty bullpen at her right for a while. Then, she bent down and took a set of paper files from the drawer of her desk. She poured herself a cup of tea, heaved a sigh and started re-reading.

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

Heading South

"G?"
The three of them had been silent for the past couple of minutes, and Sam glanced at his partner next to him. Callen gazed through the side window, staring at nothing but the blur of the city passing by. He didn't really feel like talking, but he knew how his partner could insist.
"I'm fine. All you need to do is to floor it. Got the feeling we're hours behind."

"We left only a quarter of an hour after them," Eric interrupted, taking the remark of Callen very literally. "And Nell has got this map."
He extended his arm to show the senior agents the map Nell had put online. "You see, those dots—"
Callen interrupted "I get it, Eric." His words came out rather harsh and Sam now felt the urge to soften them. "Thanks, Eric. Looks like we are still far behind indeed. Tell us again, what was it the two of you discussed?"

"Ehm… Well, about how we can tape discussions, and how we have used them as evidence in several cases. So, she is aware that we can pick up the sounds and how it works, and she knows about the GPS."

"She's an agent, for crying out loud. Of course she understands."

Again, Sam sighed deeply. "G… who did you meet, agent Marcia Schwartz, or Macey Campbell, the writer?"

Callen paused a few seconds, lifted his shoulders and dropped them. With this action, he softly moaned as the theatre of the action hurt more than he'd expected. "Well… you weren't around. She's been serving, Sam, Army in Iraq. Saw terrible things, was in bad situations. How's that for the PTSD? She knows the things she went through, though she still doesn't remember a thing. But I saw how she reacted to reading files, watching pictures. No matter if someone says she's blocking memories or really lost them, things shouldn't be that damned difficult for someone, for her, well... You know?"

Sam hummed. "You're mad, buddy, and I get that. Things like this happen. They happen everywhere and to everyone, to you, to us. Difference is we can look back, evaluate, talk, debrief. Besides, we have each other. We're about each other's memory too, if necessary."

He was glad to see the quick smirk on his partner's face, but also noticed it faded soon after.
"I hate it, actually, that she went lone wolf. Why? She could have waited, like we agreed. So, why?"

Again, a reply came from the backseat. "She's not working for them, or plainly for them. She knows about the deceit from her own boss from that time, Keene. And she knows that they want something from her. But you and I, and she, none of us know what it is. So… no better way to find out but to cooperate and try and share this intel. And she knows we're following her, just like she probably expects us to intervene at the right moment."

The men in the front kept silent for a few more seconds, then Sam hit the pedal even more.

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

Redondo Beach parking

Macey inhaled deeply and finally dared to ask "Where are we going to?"

It was Keene who answered "Heading South. We've been there before, remember?" He snorted with his own choice of words. "Although, no, of course you will probably not remember, do you?"

She repeated his words "South? Long Beach? San Diego?"
It was easy enough to learn it was Long Beach, as it was easy enough to read Keene's eyes. "So, Long Beach. Why?" she now asked.

Keene opened his mouth once again to answer, but it was Martin Blake who was the first to hiss a warning. In a loud and angry voice he addressed her. "My god. You're wired. You're asking all kind of questions because you know you're being overheard."
She shook her head, looked up as she tried not to show the sudden fear she felt. "I'm not."
There was something, just the faintest something, that she felt like a déjà vu. There was the flash of a knife to which she closed her eyes. Her breathing hitched and she started trembling. Would this be it?

A little louder, Gerald Keene intervened. "Wait, Martin. It's too soon to…"

"Don't be such a pussy, Gerald," Blake responded. His eyes spat fire, especially since he did not find what he expected. "I know just as well as you do that we need her alive." He'd used his knife to cut through the cotton of her knitted cardigan and the shirt she wore underneath it.
Like him, she watched how the white of the shirt turned red and an equally dark spot appeared on the blue of the cardigan.
She swallowed away the panic, the fear and the burn of the skin which the knife touched, and her eyes were teary now. "I'm… I told you. I'm not wired."

"Dammit. Oscar!" Blake now shouted. "Get me some duct tape and help me to shut this one down."
To his other partner, he snarled "Listen, Gerald. I don't know who you're trusting better, her or me. For all I know, your goal and mine is to get what we need, get it out and get it all over with. Don't you think I know we need this… this bitch? Hell, I do. We need her, at least—" he glanced at his watch and checked the surroundings as if to compute something very fast. He then continued, his voice lower now "I'm damn well aware we need her for the next hour. And whatever it is, I'm not gonna talk to her and I'm not giving her another chance to try and control any conversation, mood or moves."
He shot her another angry look and ordered "Tie her up."

The three men were stronger, much stronger than she was. Despite her short struggle, Martin Blake, rudely pressed a short strip of tape he'd pulled off, over her mouth. "This will shut you up."

Macey desperately shook her head in an attempt to get rid of it, but it was without success. Her hands were pulled behind her back and swiftly tied together, and she was not in a position to fight the men when the tape was used to tie her ankles after that.
"Throw her in the back of the car."

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

NCIS office of special projects

She rushed down the staircase, the tablet computer pressed closely to her body. "Hetty?" Her voice sounded urging yet small at the same time. "I've got… You've got… Please, could you listen?"

All the orders Martin Blake had yelled to the others, all the things he'd shouted or hissed, were precisely recorded and sounded the same, even the third time Nell had listened to the recording.
"They're still nearly a quarter of an hour behind, Hetty. And I—"

The older woman simply raised her right arm and hand, which made Nell stop rattling. "Please, young lady. We need you to calm down, now, don't we?"
On the short and puzzled nod of the young information analyst, Hetty took the hand-held computer and pressed the replay button. After she'd listened to what was recorded, she gazed at the papers in front of her. With her left hand rubbing her neck and her expression as unreadable as in several difficult situations, the seasoned handler slowly said "Tell agent Blye and detective Deeks there will be a back-up team joining them, soon. Be very clear now, and explain there will be no action whatsoever allowed until I decide differently."

The puzzled look on the younger woman's face never left and she now knitted her brows. "Anything about where they're headed to?"

There was a careful nod, again, as Henrietta Lange explained her thoughts. They should head to Windsor Way."

It didn't mean a thing to the younger woman. "The harbor district?"

"Yes, dear. To be more exactly, I suggest they will post around the cruise terminal in there. I've got quite a certain feeling that this is where they are all heading to."

"And you have got this feeling, or know this, because…?" Nell asked, curious now because she got the feeling she missed something.

"It is because of this. Pete Jones." Hetty told. She now opened the paper files on her desk, turned them so Nell could read the information. All the information of Now, Nell lifted her brows again. "You think that… this has got something to do with it?"

The paler blue eyes behind the glasses went over the younger face in front of her. "I am, Miss Jones. I am. Actually, this is what I call a gut feeling. I fear that this is going way back to the case which concerned the moment agent Schwartz' partner was found killed, close, very close to this same cruise terminal of Windsor Way, and the same night in which Miss Schwartz lost her memory and was badly hurt."

Nell shook her head. "I don't get it, yet, but I've got the feeling there will be a moment you will explain all of this to me, soon. For now, what about Callen and Sam, and Eric?" she asked, pragmatically as ever.

Hetty now turned the tablet computer on her desk and pointed at the first bright red dot which moved southwards quickly. "I will call them, Miss Jones. They're on the right way as well. But they need to stay close to these dots. Very close."

o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)o)

Near Redondo Beach || Highway 1

There was a kind of weariness in his behavior and in Callen's voice that Sam did not recognize. He glanced at the man next to him. "What did she want?"

Callen uttered something that sounded like a deep grunt and said "Telling me to keep tailing the car as best as we can without being noticed. And she actually ordered not to interfere anything, yet."
He stretched and sat slumped after, his mind drifting to how this chase was going. Not how he'd expected. Had it been only hours ago when he'd tried to relax in a safe house, enjoying a cup of hot coffee and curious about his companion? This roller-coaster of the past few days, weeks seemed to go fast-forward, but not in a way he'd envisioned.

"See it you can switch to the one-o-seven, Sam," Eric instructed, and Sam gratefully smiled at him in the rear view mirror. "Copy that," he said. "Any indication about—"

"Eleven minutes now, Sam," the Tech said.

Thank you all for reading!
Knirbenrots