"Detective, thank you for joining us."
For the first time in for as long as he can remember, Marty Deeks doesn't have a witty come back.
Well in truth, he had really forgotten the one that had popped in his head five minutes earlier while climbing up the back end of the wooden scaffold, but seeing the bomb dangling from Nahili's vest clears it out of his mind. Deeks tightens his grip on the M82 rifle in hand and trains it the best he can on a spot on Nahili's shoulder, right where he can shoot the arm without the dead man's switch. "My pleasure," Deeks replies with just enough cockiness to elicit a scowl from Nahili. "You wanted to see me?"
"Detective Deeks, I had been informed that you weren't planning on joining us."
"I couldn't miss this," Deeks answers quickly. In the corner of his eye, he can see just the top of his partner's head move slowly out of view. Nahili catches Kensi's movement too and clicks his tongue, "I wouldn't do that, dearie. I must just be tempted to go boom a little quicker."
Kensi stops in her tracks and gives him a resentful nod. "Sorry."
"As I had told Agent Hanna before I took his beautiful Michelle here," Nahili pauses to sniff Michelle's neck, "I gave him a choice- your lives in exchange for hers."
Deeks slides an inch forward on the scaffold and takes a better scan of the area below him. Kensi is inches away from the front of the scaffold; he'd consider her close enough for him to drop down and shield her if the bomb goes off. Callen and Sam are close enough to Nahili to lunge at him in one move, but not close enough to be able to do it in time.
So it's time for Plan B.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa- before you do something that you'll regret, like blowing everyone here to hell, let's stop and think about this," Deeks suggests. He swears he can feel his teammates confused looks about his technique burning a hole through the bottom of the scaffold. "You blow everyone up and you'll look like the weak one."
"I'll be the weak one. Really."
"You'll be the guy who freaked out, sold his weapons for what I'm assuming to be a piss poor price and then blew a couple of soldiers, NCIS agents and a police detective because you couldn't handle the pressure. We're all going to be hailed as heroes including me and I'm just a terrible detective," Deeks states. He almost refers back to the bruising on his jaw from Sidarov, but there's a chance it'd counter his point.
Nahili's grip on around Michelle's neck loosens ever so slightly and his eyes darken. "I'm not the weak one in all of this, Detective. I will be the man who took down –"
"Only a couple of soldiers and some agents, dude. No one is going to remember you…..for anything! You'll just be a name in a file that no one will remember and the fact that you've been sitting here and listening to me ramble about this shows that you know I'm right. You're weak-"
As Deeks expects, Nahili breaks down and reacts. What he doesn't expect is how. Deeks blinks half a second before he can feel a bullet slam against his chest with a force hard enough to knock him backwards off of the scaffold. He isn't sure where he ends up after but he does know one thing.
I am going to seriously shoot someone if after all this, Nahili doesn't get his ass kicked.
Sam lunges towards Nahili the moment the gunshot goes off.
In the midst of Deeks' rambling, Nahili had utterly snapped. He had pushed thrown Michelle to the side and pulled out a silver Sig Sauer P229 to fire a shot towards Deeks. Sam doesn't look back to check on the detective's welfare mainly as he knows that Kensi is already sprinting hard to her partner's side. All that matters to the agent is disabling Nahili and his bomb and trying not to strangle the man in the process.
Sam swings his left arm forward and slams his fist into Nahili's jaw. Nahili staggers two steps backward before attempting a head-butt at Sam, which results in a near miss. Sam then reaches outwardly to the dead man's switch and wraps his hand over Nahili's. When Nahili tries to knock Sam in the jaw, Sam drops to his knees and inadvertently pulls the dead man's switch from Nahili's hand.
What the- the damn thing was a fake! Sam thinks as he looks down to the switch in hand. He glances back up to see Nahili running towards the Sig that had slid underneath the trunk of a car. Sam sprints hard after him and knocks Nahili to the ground with a kick to the back of the knees. Both men land in a heap on the ground and Sam manages to wrap his hand on the grip of the gun and slam heavy weapon against the Nahili's skull.
"Son of a bitch….son of a bitch…." Sam gasps. He takes a half a glance at the now unconscious Nahili before rolling onto his side to see Michelle. His wife is on her knees catching her breath with a faint smile on her face. Sam's been separated from her for only ten to fifteen minutes now, but it feels like forever. "Babe…."
"I'm ok," Michelle replies. She runs a hand around the back of her neck where Nahili had sniffed her. "I'll be fine. Go check on Deeks."
"What?"Sam's eyes widen. Deeks, you know Deeks. The man who just sacrificed his life for you and your wife again. The man who I will never doubt again could be dead.
A/N: One more to go.