The last 3 hours had been pure hell for poor Hetty.

Her husband had left 8 days ago to go on a dangerous mission that he couldn't tell her about. And his squad had gone missing and was found dead.

She had almost fainted after the soldier had told her that he was missing. And had barely managed to tell him that she was sending her team to look for the squad.

She semi tearfully called her agents for an emergency meeting, and barely held it together when she told them what had happened, and that she was sending them to find them.

Callen could see that she was struggling to not cry in front of all of them, so, when the rest of them left, he stayed behind to give her a good bye hug.

'I can't lose him! Please bring him home!' Hetty cried.

'Shh. We will. We will. Just hang in there.' Callen said, soothingly.

Hetty had instructed them to call her as soon as they got to camp.

Hours later

After what had seemed like a very long painful wait, the agents finally called.

After abruptly ending his call with Hetty, Granger and the squad of 5 other soldiers had left to chase after criminals who not only were suspected of stealing dangerous weapons, but also suspected of human trafficking. They were getting ready to infiltrate the lair the criminals were at, when all connection was lost. And one of the squad's dead bodies had been found.

'It looks as if, either they ambushed and went off on their own, or were taken.' Callen told Hetty.

'Are you sure you only found 1 body?' Hetty asked.

'We are very sure.'

'Sigh. Well, get busy. And keep in touch.

The hours passed. Hetty tried not to show too much worry about the mission's outcome, except for when Nell came down and saw her hugging a pillow.

'You alright?' She asked.

'What's it look like?' Hetty responded, gloomily. 'Any updates?'

'No. Just checking on you.'

'Groan.'

'I, really don't want to imagine what it is you're going through right now…'

'And I pray you never have to, because it is horrible! I can't stop thinking that he might be dead, or being tortured, or dead. And it's horrible!' Hetty said.

'Callen's got an update!' Eric said.

In OPS

'We may know where the missing squad is.' Callen said.

'That's great!'

'There's a catch. Our coms won't work in this area we are going to. So we'll have to go dark for a bit. But it shouldn't take us too long to search the area.'

'Oh. Okay. Good luck.'

Connection went dark.

'Godspeed. All of you. Please find him alive.' Hetty thought.

To be continued