Judgement: Chapter 25
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The emergency room was utter chaos with doctors and nurses rushing between exam rooms, shouting for extra units of blood and IVs as the halls became choked with incoming wounded. Hetty was almost run down by a gurney being pushed through the door from the ambulance bay with a paramedic straddling a bleeding agent and performing CPR as it flashed past her. She paused briefly in her search to take the hand of a young member of one of the NCIS tactical squads as he lay quietly moaning on a gurney that waited in the hall. She stayed with him until a couple of interns finally arrived to take him into one of the exam rooms. She leaned against the wall after he was gone and tried to calm her racing heart and to control the anger she was feeling. Then she continued her search for Marty Deeks. She asked at the desk, but the nurse manning it couldn't help her and looked as if she needed help herself as more ambulances arrived. Hetty shook her head and stepped into the waiting room to get out of the way of the latest arrivals. Then she saw him and a sense of relief instantly swept over her. He was on an incoming gurney and was trying to sit up as he yelled at the paramedics wheeling him in.
"Take him first," Deeks shouted, only to be pushed back down by an obviously angry and frustrated EMT.
"Mr. Deeks," Hetty called out, and he turned to look at her, his face a frantic mask of worry and uncontrolled fear.
"Hetty, make them get Joe in, please," he said, his voice high and cracking as he spoke. His belief that she could control any situation touched her, but she knew her influence in this situation was almost nonexistent, but she nodded at him and it seemed to calm him down. The paramedic gave her a thankful look and she realized her former agent hadn't been an easy patient for him. The scene was so eerily reminiscent of a month ago that it jarred her and she reached up to touch the wall to steady herself.
The paramedics parked his gurney in the hall and she moved quickly to his side as Joe was pushed past them and into a room. She rested her hand on Deeks' arm, as she looked him over. She could almost feel the adrenalin pumping through his veins as he strained to see what was happening with Joe Atwood.
"He has to be all right, Hetty," He said softly as he finally laid his head back. The air seemed to leave his lungs then and she saw tears glaze his eyes as he brought his arm up to cover his face.
"How are you doing, Mr. Deeks?" Hetty asked. "You scared the crap out of poor Mr. Callen when you didn't answer your status call."
"I killed him, Hetty," Deeks said so quietly that she almost didn't hear him. "I emptied a clip into the murdering son-of-a-bitch."
"Lee Chao. Yes, I saw that, Mr. Deeks," Hetty said.
"How?" he asked raising his arm to look at her.
"Eric accessed the ship's onboard security cameras," she replied. "We saw everything that happened."
"I should have killed him the day after he took out our team, Hetty," Deeks said as he stared glassy-eyed into space. "When I went back to Locke to keep an eye on him, I wanted to walk across the street and knock on his door and shoot the bastard point blank, but I didn't, because I'm an officer of the law, and we're not supposed to do that."
She was alarmed at the bitterness in his voice and was scared for him.
"If I had killed him that day, none of this would have happened," he said. "All the men who died tonight would still be alive and the wounded would have been home with their families, instead of bleeding in the dark and Joe wouldn't be in that room fighting for his life. This is on me, Hetty, and I'm not sure how to live with it."
"You're judging yourself rather harshly, don't you think, Mr. Deeks?" Hetty asked.
"Am I?" He asked.
Before she could comment he was wheeled away by a couple of interns who informed her he was going straight up to surgery. She knew he could be hard on himself, but to take on all of the guilt for what had just happened would be overwhelming and she had to find a way to convince him he was wrong. She asked a passing intern about Joe Atwood and was told he was holding his own, but had a severe head wound and had lost a lot of blood from all the shrapnel wounds and would be going up to surgery as soon as they could get him stabilized. She knew if he died, that Deeks would never truly forgive himself.
"Callen, we need to talk," Hetty said quickly into her phone.
"Hetty, how is he?" Callen asked.
"I spoke with him briefly before he went up to surgery," Hetty said. "Mr. Callen, he's blaming himself for all of this."
"What? Why?" Callen sounded shocked.
"He feels he should have killed Lee Chao the day after all of you were wounded," Hetty said solemnly.
"God, Hetty, he can't do this to himself," Callen said.
"But he truly believes it and we have to find a way to convince him otherwise, Mr. Callen," she said, "If we don't, then he's lost to us and more importantly, he'll be lost to himself, because he won't recover from this."
"Did you tell him what Granger did?" Callen asked.
"No, of course not, Mr. Callen. He's filled with enough anger already," Hetty said.
"He's going to find out one of these days, Hetty," Callen said. "And when he does he might not be able to control his reaction, especially if Joe dies."
"Granger has plenty of people after his tight ass right now," Hetty replied. "Let's help Mr. Deeks recover before he finds out."
"Keep us posted Hetty," Callen said. "Sam's not taking any of this well, and Kensi knows something happened, but I've managed to convince her that Deeks is okay."
"I'll let you know when he's in a room," Hetty said. "He'll need someone to talk to, Mr. Callen."
"Sam and I will be there for him," Callen said.
Hetty ended the call and then started to make her way through the confusion to head up to the OR when she saw Assistant Director James McLoughlan of the FBI standing silently in the waiting room. He looked completely stunned and when she caught his eye he shook his head, disbelief and sadness plainly visible on his face. They hadn't known each other very long, having only met a couple of years ago in Washington when she'd made a visit to Roger Stinson at the National Security Branch of the FBI.
"How are you holding up, James?" Hetty questioned softly.
"I lost some good men out there tonight, Hetty," He answered, "And I would have lost more if Deeks hadn't shouted out that warning."
"Yes, he and Joe did a good job tonight," Hetty said. "I'm sorry for all this, Jim. It shouldn't have happened."
"I'm going to see to it that Granger is brought before the Congressional Oversight Committee, Hetty," McLoughlan said vehemently, the anger flashing in his eyes as he spoke. "I've already called Director Vance and Roger has been talking with SecNav. Granger sent his own team in first and jeopardized the whole op. If he had just waited until the lights were doused like we'd planned then his team wouldn't have been spotted and my men would still be alive. "
"We all lost good people tonight, Jim," Hetty said. "But we took down a Chinese agent and recovered more highly secretive weaponry than we even knew he had stolen. That ship was his covert operations center and had a state of the art communications set-up with links to Chinese Intelligence. There's a lot of top secret information to be culled from that ship and we have Deeks and Atwood to thank for finding it."
"How are they Hetty?" he asked. "I haven't had a chance to check on them."
"They're both in surgery," Hetty said softly. "I'm afraid Agent Atwood's wounds are quite serious. Mr. Deeks will recover physically, but mentally and emotionally, I'm not so sure."
"He's been through a lot," McLoughlan said. "But he saw it through, Hetty. He got that bastard."
"Yes, but he blames himself for not taking him out earlier," Hetty said.
"We both know there's not one operation that doesn't leave you with a few regrets," he said solemnly. "But this one wasn't his fault, it was Granger's. He was working his own agenda, Hetty, and the FBI will make sure he pays for that."
She watched him go and shook her head as she realized how unsettling the coming weeks and months would be. Her phone rang again and she took a deep breath when she saw who was calling.
"Yes, Leon," she said.
"What the hell happened out there, Hetty?" He was shouting into the phone and she was forced to pull it away from her ear.
"Your favorite Assistant Director botched the op, Leon," she said. "He was more interested in making a name for himself than making sure the operation ran smoothly. He sent his own hand picked team in first just so he could claim the prize of capturing Lee Chao and it cost a lot of lives and hopefully his career."
"Hetty, he was in charge of the operation, so that was his decision to make." He replied.
"But he didn't stick to the plan, Leon," Hetty heard her own strident voice rising. "He didn't wait for the lights to be shut down before sending in his men and they were spotted. He was overanxious, Leon."
Leon Vance was silent then, and she could almost hear the doubts forming in his mind.
"Leon, the FBI will not let this drop," she said quietly. "They're taking it to the Oversight Committee and you know what that means."
"Yeah. I've already had a call from SecNav," Leon said, defeat evident in his voice. "He wants someone to answer for this mess."
"There should be no question as to who that should be, Leon," Hetty said. "No question at all."
...
Deeks woke slowly; exhaustion and pain tearing at him and making him close his eyes once again, searching for relief. The relief wouldn't come, but the memories did and he opened his eyes just to get away from the flashing scenes that were playing out inside his head. He wondered what day it was and his thoughts flew to Kensi and Callen and Sam. Confusion unsettled him as he recalled the violent explosion and he cried out as he remembered Joe.
"Joe." he said, but his voice was barely above a whisper.
"It's just us, Deeks," Callen said softly. "Joe's still in surgery."
"Callen? Sam?" Deeks said, "He's still alive?"
"Yes he is, Deeks," Sam said.
He looked at them for a few seconds and then closed his eyes and turned away. They talked to him for a while and tried to ask him questions about how he was feeling, but they got no response. His eyes would open occasionally, but he wouldn't look at them and Callen could tell Sam was getting angry with him.
"I don't think he's happy to see us, Sam," Callen said, trying to break some of the tension.
Sam said nothing in reply, he just kept staring at Deeks and Callen saw him clench his fists in frustration and knew how upsetting this was for him. Sam had wanted to go down to the ER to look for Deeks, but Callen had convinced him they would both just be in the way, so they had waited together with Kensi, until a nurse came to tell them that he was out of surgery. They had been waiting for him to wake up so they could let Kensi know he was okay, but Callen wasn't sure he wanted to tell her about this Deeks. This Deeks was unresponsive and withdrawn, his face rigid and his eyes open, but unseeing and it was scaring the shit out of Callen. He didn't seem angry, just despondent and completely in his own closed off world.
"Stop this, Deeks," Sam suddenly said loudly. "Stop it right now!"
But again there was no response, no movement in his body or his face.
"Deeks, this wasn't your fault," Callen said softly and gripped his arm.
Tears slipped silently from Deeks' eyes and Callen exchanged looks with Sam, both hoping they had broken through to him.
"You were wrong, Sam," Deeks said as he stared at the far wall.
"About what, Deeks?" Sam looked confused by the comment.
"You told me to stay within the law," he said. "You told me not to become a murderer so I would respect myself when this was all over, but you were wrong, Sam. I should have shot him all those weeks ago and ended this. But I listened to you, Sam. I listened and now men are dead because I stayed within the law. How can I respect myself now, Sam?"
Callen saw nothing but anguish on Sam's face as Deeks spoke.
"This op was blown Deeks," Sam finally said quietly. "But not by you. You weren't in charge out there, Granger was. You called out a warning that saved lives tonight, Deeks. Think about that. Get your head clear and quit judging yourself. You did your job, Deeks."
He made no comment and hardly acknowledged that Sam had spoken and Callen looked sadly at Sam, who shook his head and wheeled his chair toward the door. Callen patted Deeks' arm one last time and turned to follow Sam out. They had seen Deeks take on guilt before, but this time it was unwarranted and they weren't sure they would be able to make him realize just how hard he was being on himself.
They paused in the hall and Callen could see the anger on Sam's face.
"He's in shock, Sam," Callen said. "He doesn't know what he's saying."
"Do you think he was right, G?" Sam asked. "Do you think he should have just walked up and shot Lee Chao the day after our op was blown? No one would have blamed him if he had."
"You would have, and you know it, Sam," Callen said. "Second guessing doesn't do anyone any good on this one. We would never have discovered Lee Chao was an agent for the Chinese, and you know there are more agents out there. Hetty said that ship was state of the art, so Lee Chao wasn't the only one using it. He was just the tip of the iceberg."
"That's a reasonable assessment, G," Sam said as they headed toward their rooms. "But what Deeks is feeling isn't reasonable. He's just hurting and he's angry about what happened out there tonight. Seeing Joe almost killed right in front of him shook him, so I can't even imagine what he went through when the three of us were injured. He's never had a chance to recover from that, let alone from what Lee Chao did to him, and now tonight's firefight. He needs to heal, G. He just needs time."
"Well, he may not get it," Callen said. "The shit's gonna hit the fan on this operation and there'll be an investigation and he's gonna be in the middle of it. If he tells them he feels responsible, he'll be letting Granger off the hook."
"No way Granger gets away with what he did tonight, G," Sam said. "No way."
"I hope you're right Sam," Callen said, shaking his head. "I really hope you're right for Deeks' sake."
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